RECENT PROGRESSES ON THE CELLULAR MOTILITY, CELL MIGRATION AND CYTOSKELETON
细胞运动、细胞迁移与细胞骨架研究进展

Cytoskeleton dynamics is essential for the directional cell motility and migration. Motile cells protrude the leading edge in their lamellipodia by the cytoskeletal assembly and pull the cell body forward by the disassembly and retraction of the cytoskeleton. The protrusion and retraction are coupled through cell attaching to and detaching from the substrate. Actin cytoskeleton is the major player in the cell motility and locomotion in most eukaryotic cells. The signal transduction pathways in the actin cytoskeletal treadmilling have been clarified recently. Acting like actin-based cell motility, the dynamics of nematode major sperm protein (MSP) cytoskeleton propels the worm sperm crawling. However, MSP cytoskeleton has no polarity, ATP binding site and motor protein, which are different from actin. As both systems display identical features of amoeboid locomotion, they may share very similar mechanical principles for cell migration.