Journal
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY
Volume 17, Issue 4, Pages 445-+Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ncb3137
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Funding
- National Research Foundation Singapore, Ministry of Education of Singapore [R-714-006-006-271]
- National Institutes of Health (NIH) [P01-GM098412]
- NIH [P01-GM066311]
- Israel Science Foundation [758/11, 956/10]
- Marie Curie network Virus Entry
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Cellular mechanisms underlying the development of left-right asymmetry in tissues and embryos remain obscure. Here, the development of a chiral pattern of actomyosin was revealed by studying actin cytoskeleton self-organization in cells with isotropic circular shape. A radially symmetrical system of actin bundles consisting of ff -actinin-enriched radial fibres (RFs) and myosin-IIA-enriched transverse fibres (TFs) evolved spontaneously into the chiral system as a result of the unidirectional tilting of all RFs, which was accompanied by a tangential shift in the retrograde movement of TFs. We showed that myosin-IIA-dependent contractile stresses within TFs drive their movement along RFs, which grow centripetally in a formin-dependent fashion. The handedness of the chiral pattern was shown to be regulated by alpha-actinin-1. Computational modelling demonstrated that the dynamics of the RF-TF system can explain the pattern transition from radial to chiral. Thus, actin cytoskeleton self-organization provides built-in machinery that potentially allows cells to develop left-right asymmetry.
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