Laboratoire d'Enzymologie et Biochimie Structurales, CNRS, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Eur J Cell Biol. 2013 Oct-Nov;92(10-11):333-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ejcb.2013.10.011. Epub 2013 Nov 4.
The actin cytoskeleton plays an essential role in a cell's ability to generate and sense forces, both internally and in interaction with the outside world. The transduction of mechanical cues into biochemical reactions in cells, in particular, is a multi-scale process which requires a variety of approaches to be understood. This review focuses on understanding how mechanical stress applied to an actin filament can affect its assembly dynamics. Today, experiments addressing this issue at the scale of individual actin filaments are emerging and bring novel insight into mechanotransduction. For instance, recent data show that actin filaments can act as mechanosensors, as an applied tension or curvature alters their conformation and their affinity for regulatory proteins. Filaments can also transmit mechanical tension to other proteins, which consequently change the way they interact with the filaments to regulate their assembly. These results provide evidence for mechanotransduction at the scale of individual filaments, showing that forces participate in the regulation of filament assembly and organization. They bring insight into the elementary events coupling mechanics and biochemistry in cells. The experiments presented here are linked to recent technical developments, and certainly announce the advent of more exciting results in the future.
肌动蛋白细胞骨架在细胞产生和感知内部和与外部世界相互作用的力的能力方面发挥着至关重要的作用。细胞内机械线索向生化反应的转化是一个多尺度的过程，需要多种方法来理解。这篇综述的重点是了解施加在肌动蛋白丝上的机械应力如何影响其组装动力学。如今，在单个肌动蛋白丝尺度上解决这个问题的实验正在出现，并为机械转导带来了新的见解。例如，最近的数据表明，肌动蛋白丝可以作为机械感受器，因为施加的张力或曲率会改变它们的构象及其与调节蛋白的亲和力。丝还可以将机械张力传递给其他蛋白质，这些蛋白质随后改变它们与丝相互作用的方式，以调节它们的组装。这些结果为单个丝的机械转导提供了证据，表明力参与了丝组装和组织的调节。它们为细胞内力学和生物化学的基本事件提供了深入的了解。这里呈现的实验与最近的技术发展相关联，并肯定预示着未来更令人兴奋的结果的出现。
