Movers and Shapers

Most of your cells are like restless toddlers, unable to sit still. They shuffle around, constantly adjusting their position and shape. And this guides how they achieve their essential tasks. This moulding and movement relies on the coordinated action of actin (thin fibres that provide structure and direction, pink in the morphing cell pictured) and focal adhesions (blue). Like tiny suction pads, these adhesions grab hold to, and push off from, the surface cells sit on. Focal adhesions are essential to everyday cells, but are known to be enhanced in cancer cells spreading around the body. How adhesions form during initial cell spreading is not well known, but new research has revealed that they assemble in groups which then split into separate, mature units. The dynamic interactions between these units control their morphology, and understanding these mechanics may be the key to stopping wickedly wandering cells in their tracks.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image/video by Lorna Young
• Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH, USA
• Image/video copyright held by Elsevier 2018. Reproduced with permission.
• Research published in Current Biology, June 2018