biosights: April 14, 2014

An actin lever flattens out the cell

The lamella is a broad, flat region that forms at the front of migrating cells and adheres to the underlying substrate. Burnette et al. reveal that cells flatten out the lamella by mechanically coupling a contractile actomyosin network at the dorsal surface to ventral cell adhesions. This biosights episode presents the paper by Burnette et al. from the April 14, 2014, issue of The Journal of Cell Biology and includes an interview with authors Dylan Burnette (Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN) and Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz (NICHD, Bethesda, MD). Produced by Caitlin Sedwick and Ben Short. See the associated paper in JCB for details on the funding provided to support this original research.

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