Intracellular transport is largely driven by processive microtubule- and actin-based molecular motors. Nonprocessive motors have also been localized to trafficking cargos, but their roles are not well understood. Myosin-Ic (Myo1c), a nonprocessive actin motor, functions in a variety of exocytic events, although the underlying mechanisms are not yet clear. To investigate the interplay between my...

Objective(s):Antibodies against actin, as one of the most widely studied structural and multifunctional housekeeping proteins in eukaryotic cells, are used as internal loading controls in western blot analyses. The aim of this study was to produce polyclonal antibody against a synthetic peptide derived from N-terminal region of β-actin protein to be used as a protein loading control in western ...

Eukaryotes harbour a conserved signalling pathway, called General Amino Acid Control (GAAC) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, for overcoming amino acid starvation. Upon starvation, the protein kinase Gcn2, which phosphorylates eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF2α, becomes stimulated to trigger GAAC response. Genetic studies suggest that Yih1, is yeast homolog of mammalian IMPACT and binds ...

ADF/cofilins are essential regulators of actin filament turnover. Several ADF/cofilin isoforms are found in multicellular organisms, but their biological differences have remained unclear. Here we show that three ADF/cofilins exist in mouse and most likely in all other mammalian species. Northern blot, and in situ hybridization analyses demonstrate that cofilin-1 is expressed in most cell types...

Frabin, together with, at least, FGD1, FGD2, FGD3 and FGD1-related Cdc42-GEF (FRG), is a member of a family of Cdc42-specific gua-nine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs). These proteins have multiple phosphoinositide-binding domains, including two pleckstrin homology (PH) domains and an FYVE or FERM domain. It is likely that they couple the actin cytoskeleton with the plasma membrane. Frabin as...

The expression of three different actin genes in the sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, was monitored in embryos and adult tissues by using untranslated mRNA sequences as specific hybridization probes. Three distinct patterns of expression were found: muscle specific, embryo specific, and constitutive (i.e., present in all tissues examined). The actin genes encoding the muscle-specific ...

Incubation of cultured cells under specific conditions induces a dramatic change in the actin organization: induction of intranuclear and/or cytoplasmic actin rods (actin paracrystal-like intracellular structures). We have found that cofilin, a 21-kDa actin-binding protein, is a component of these rods. Antibodies directed against cofilin labeled intranuclear actin rods induced in cells treated...

The transport of mRNAs into developing dendrites and axons may be a basic mechanism to localize cytoskeletal proteins to growth cones and influence microfilament organization. Using isoform-specific antibodies and probes for in situ hybridization, we observed distinct localization patterns for beta- and gamma-actin within cultured cerebrocortical neurons. beta-Actin protein was highly enriched ...

The expression of cytoplasmic beta-actin and cardiac, skeletal, and smooth muscle alpha-actins during early avian cardiogenesis was analyzed by in situ hybridization with mRNA-specific single-stranded DNA probes. The cytoplasmic beta-actin gene was ubiquitously expressed in the early chicken embryo. In contrast, the alpha-actin genes were sequentially activated in avian cardiac tissue during th...