Unsevered Fingers

Scratching around in the dark, filopodia poke out from growth cones like tiny fingers from a hand, helping young nerve cells (neurons) to find each other. Pictured here under a high-powered microscope, researchers zoom in on the secret of their wriggling in a rat’s neuron. Filopodia are made with a stiff protein called actin (highlighted here in green), held rigid by another protein called fascin – every now and then these fingers need renewing and are severed by a protein called cofilin (red). Yet researchers find in certain conditions cofilin wraps itself around the actin, breaking the ties with fascin and allowing filopodia to bend and flex. This gentler role for the nervous finger chopper may be crucial in helping neurons search their environment during development, and may be guided later in life in treatments for neurodegenerative disease.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video by Ryan K. Hylton and colleagues
• Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, May 2022