From solution to surface to filament: actin flux into branched networks

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1 Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
2 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, San Francisco, CA, United States
3 Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund, Germany
4 Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.27254v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Biochemistry, Biophysics, Cell Biology
Keywords
actin, cytoskeleton, Arp2/3 complex, branched actin network, cell motility, membrane dynamics
Copyright
© 2018 Mullins et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Mullins D, Bieling P, Fletcher DA. 2018. From solution to surface to filament: actin flux into branched networks. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27254v1

Abstract

The actin cytoskeleton comprises a set of filament networks that perform essential functions in eukaryotic cells. The idea that actin filaments incorporate monomers directly from solution forms both the “textbook picture” of filament elongation and a conventional starting point for quantitative modeling of cellular actin dynamics. Recent work, however, reveals that filaments created by two major regulators, the formins and the Arp2/3 complex, incorporate monomers delivered by nearby proteins. Specifically, actin enters Arp2/3-generated networks via binding sites on nucleation promoting factors clustered on membrane surfaces. Here, we describe three functions of this surface-associated actin monomer pool: (1) regulating network density via product inhibition of the Arp2/3 complex; (2) accelerating filament elongation as a distributive polymerase; and (3) converting profilin-actin into a substrate for the Arp2/3 complex. These linked functions control the architecture of branched networks and explain how capping protein enhances their growth.

Author Comment

This is a preprint version of a review article written for a festschrift volume of Biophysical Reviews in honor of Thomas D. Pollard.