Structural polymorphism and functional differentiation of actin filaments

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The goal of this project is to understood how different actin filaments within a cell perform different functions. We found that stretched actin filaments with a longer helical pitch have higher affinity for myosin II. We also found that myosin II and cofilin, two major actin binding proteins, bound to actin filaments in a mutually exclusive manner, even though the two proteins do not compete for a binding site on actin. These results support our hypothesis that actin filaments of different atomic structures have different affinities for different actin binding proteins, leading to functional differentiation within cells.