The Francis Crick Institute, 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A3LY, United Kingdom.
Biotechnology Center, Technical University Dresden, Tatzberg 47/49, 01307 Dresden, Germany.
Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2016 Feb;38:24-30. doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2016.01.004. Epub 2016 Jan 30.
Chirality or mirror asymmetry is a common theme in biology found in organismal body plans, tissue patterns and even in individual cells. In many cases the emergence of chirality is driven by actin cytoskeletal dynamics. Although it is well established that the actin cytoskeleton generates rotational forces at the molecular level, we are only beginning to understand how this can result in chiral behavior of the entire actin network in vivo. In this review, we will give an overview of actin driven chiralities across different length scales known until today. Moreover, we evaluate recent quantitative models demonstrating that chiral symmetry breaking of cells can be achieved by properly aligning molecular-scale torque generation processes in the actomyosin cytoskeleton.
手性或镜像不对称是生物学中的一个常见主题，存在于生物体的体式、组织模式甚至单个细胞中。在许多情况下，手性的出现是由肌动蛋白细胞骨架动力学驱动的。尽管肌动蛋白细胞骨架在分子水平上产生旋转力已经得到充分证实，但我们才刚刚开始了解这如何导致体内整个肌动蛋白网络的手性行为。在这篇综述中，我们将概述迄今为止已知的不同长度尺度上由肌动蛋白驱动的手性。此外，我们评估了最近的定量模型，这些模型表明通过在肌动球蛋白细胞骨架中正确排列分子尺度扭矩产生过程，可以实现细胞的手性对称破缺。
