Indirect Influence

A criminal kingpin might orchestrate a whole network of mischief, but only directly instruct a small circle of trusted henchmen. New research on a protein in the cell cytoskeleton – the structural web within cells – reveals a similar pattern of influence. PFN1 is well known to be involved in the assembly of actin (filaments that play a key structural role in the cytoskeleton), but there were also signs of its involvement in microtubules – another cytoskeleton component. Silencing PFN1 caused changes in microtubule abundance and structure (pink and blue, right) compared to normal (left). Reducing actin activity had similar effects, and if actin was restored the microtubule changes reversed, suggesting that PFN1 is acting on microtubules predominantly via actin, rather than directly. Some of the microtubule changes that arose with PFN1 depleted match characteristics of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, so unpicking the lines of power could present new treatment options.

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 from work by Bruno A. Cisterna and colleagues
• Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Journal of Cell Biology, May 2024