Lister Fellow Dr Mark Dodding has recently published an important new research paper in the Journal of Cell Biology.
Entitled ‘In situ cryo-electron tomography reveals filamentous actin within the microtubule lumen’, the paper details the team’s use of cryo-electron tomography to demonstrate that the microtubule lumen can be occupied by extended segments of filamentous (F-) actin in certain cellular projections.You can view an open access version of the paper here.
Interactions between microtubules and F-actin drive many cellular processes, from basic cell division and migration to complex sub-cellular organization. It is thought that such processes are mainly controlled by proteins which interface between the two components, which are structurally distinct parts of the cytoskeleton.
The research discusses the discovery of an unexpected level of versatility in cytoskeletal form that could prompt a significant development of current models of cellular architecture.
Dr Dodding is Senior Lecturer in Cell Biology at the School of Biochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, in the University of Bristol. You can find out more about this work at this page.
His laboratory’s research seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms and signalling pathways that control the distribution and dynamics of subcellular components, focusing on structure, function, molecular mechanism and regulation of the key biomolecular machines and multiprotein complexes that regulate cellular organisation.
We are very pleased to support Dr Dodding’s work and are looking forward to hearing more about his progress in this area.
