The movement of T cells
SBGrid member Timothy Springer and other researchers have been working to better understand how actin polymerization plays a role in…
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The movement of T cells
Have you ever thought about how cells migrate? At the theoretical level, movement of cells requires the conversion of stored chemical energy into mechanical energy. Though actin polymerization produces a force, which can be transmitted through the plasma membrane to integrins, the actual role of this transmission relative to cellular movement was unknown.
SBGrid member Timothy Springer and other researchers have been working to better understand how this actin polymerization plays a role in integrin activation in order to connect the molecular events to cellular migration for T cells. In order to study integrin activity, they used a fluorescent tension-sensing form of integrin. Consequently, the researchers were able to quantitatively determine that tension and integrin activity are linked and that the activation of integrin depends on actin polymerization within the cell. In short, actin polymerization within T cells produces tension within the beta-2 subunit, causing the activation of integrin. Since integrin is bound to extracellular ligands, this allows T cells to migrate in a highly coordinated manner using complex cellular mechanisms.
Read more in ***Nature Communications***.
Kristen Rodrigues is a graduate of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology PhD program in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics with a concentration in Biological Engineering.
Originally published at https://www.tumblr.com on November 26, 2016.
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