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Cytoskeleton
Web alert
George M Langford*, Jonathon Pines† and Frank Lafont‡
A selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to papers
published in this issue of Current Opinion in Cell Biology.
Addresses
*Department of Biological Science, Dartmouth College 6044,
Gilman Laboratory, Hannover, New Haven 03755-3576, USA
† Wellcome/CRC Institute, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge, CB2 1QR, UK
‡ University of Geneva, Sciences II, 30 Quai Ernest-Ansermet,
1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland; e-mail: Frank.Lafont@biochem.unige.ch.
Current Opinion in Cell Biology 2001, 13:13–15
presented here. Rhodamin–actin and fluorescein–dextran
dynamics are followed during phagocytosis. Also, nice images
of phagocytosis are available on the same sites at
http://www.umich.edu/~jswanlab/Images/images.html.
Peter Steyger, Ph.D
http://www.ohsu.edu/ohrc/staff/steyger/movies/mindex2.htm
This index of animated confocal images includes three-dimensional rotations of F-actin in mature hair cells from a mammalian
organ of Corti and from a Bullfrog saccule. The actin was
labelled with rhodamine-conjugated phalloidin.
Cytoskeleton
The Gard Lab at the University of Utah
http://froglab.biology.utah.edu/
The Gard laboratory studies the cytoskeleton in developing
Xenopus oocytes and embryos. Click on the ‘Introduction to the
cytoskeleton’ button and you will find a comprehensive series of
images of the actin, tubulin and keratin cytoskeletons throughout
the development of the oocyte.
Microtubules
Actin
Salmon Lab Movies
http://www.unc.edu/depts/salmlab/salmonlabmovies.html
This is a collection of great movies on microtubule dynamics
during mitosis, cell motility and membrane traffic.
Videomicroscopy library
http://mphywww.tamu.edu/video_library.html
QuickTime movies (and MPEG format) are available from the
videomicroscopy page of the Department of Medical
Physiology (Texas A&M University System Health Science
Center). Zawieja presents a movie of protein kinase C and actin
distribution in a toad stomach smooth muscle cell, which was
recorded using immunolabelling and a CCD camera.
Actin assembly during cell movement
http://cmgm.stanford.edu/theriot/movies.htm
This site presents a movie from TM Terry (University of
Connecticut, Storrs) showing actin dynamics during cell
movement.
Actin dynamics during pathogen invasion
http://cmgm.stanford.edu/theriot/movies.htm
This page contains movies from J Theriot’s laboratory homepage
(Stanford University Center for Molecular and Genetic
Medicine). Several movies illustrate actin comets formed either
during Listeria monocytogenes and Shigella flexneri infection or
associated with ActA-coated bead motility in Xenopus extract.
Cortical actin patches in budding yeast
http://genome-www.stanford.edu/group/botlab/people/doyle.html
This QuickTime movie (MPEG format also available) is from
T Doyle’s website (Botstein laboratory). Using a GFP-tagged
version of actin, you can follow the polarization of the cortical
patches in diploid yeast and follow their movement in haploid
budding yeast.
Dynamics of actin during phagocytosis
http://www.umich.edu/~jswanlab/Movies/movies.html
Quicktime movies from the Joel Swanson laboratory
(University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Harbor, USA) are
Microtubule dynamics in S. Pombe
http://mc11.mcri.ac.uk/Mov/Mmov.html
Movies from the website of the Molecular Motor Group (Marie
Curie Research Institute, Surrey, UK). When we visited the site
the movies were essentially related to GFP–microtubule dynamics in Schizosaccharomyces Pombe. Also available on the site
are protocols for actomyosin and microtubule motility assays.
FtsZ movies
http://www-mmg.med.uth.tmc.edu/faculty/margolin/more_
images.htm
Movies from William Margolin (University of Texas, Houston)
using S. aureus GFP–FtsZ expressed in E. coli are presented
on this webite. They illustrate the cycle of the FtsZ–GFP ring
and the dynamic assembly of FtsZ–GFP in vitro.
Microtubule-associated proteins
The Olmsted Lab
http://www.rochester.edu/College/BIO/olmstedlab/olmstedhp.
html
On this site one can watch an MPEG movie of a GFP–MAP4
chimera in a BHK fibroblast recorded using confocal microscopy.
Zytoskelett
http://www.mpasmb-hamburg.mpg.de/zytoskelett-inhalt.htm
This website from Eckhard Mandelkow provides pages with
information and pictures on the microtubule-associated Tau
protein, on microtubule affinity regulating kinases (MARK)
and on the structure of monomeric and dimeric kinesin (from
rat brain).
Motors
Molecular motors
http://motility.york.ac.uk:85/
This is the homepage of the Molecular Motors Group at the
University of York, UK. Many techniques used to study molecular motors are described on the site: from single molecule
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Web alert
fluorescent imaging with total internal reflection microscopy to
assays measuring contraction forces produced by single cells
or motility features of actin sliding on myosin. Some links are
provided to other homepages related to motors, optical tweezers
and imaging techniques.
Movement of Motor and Cargo Along Cilia in C. elegans
http://www.mcb.ucdavis.edu/faculty-labs/scholey/kap.html
This web site has several images and two movies of fluorescently labelled kinesins moving cargoes along microtubules in
the chemosensory cillia of Caenorhabditis elegans.
Kinesin Superfamily Protein (KIF) Home Page
http://cb.m.u-tokyo.ac.jp/
This page was constructed by Yasushi Okada from Nobutaka
Hirokawa’s laboratory at Tokyo University. It offers a phylogenetic
tree and lists of KIFs by organism, class and family.
The Vale Lab Home Page
http://cmp.ucsf.edu/valelab/
The homepage of the Vale laboratory offers pictures and movies
from the Nature review article published by Rice et al. (S Rice et
al., Nature 1999, 402:778–783). As well as numerous movies of
kinesin (GFP constructs moving on a microtubule track and a
microtubule gliding on myosin coated on glass) and a movie of
Katanin severing, this site also presents an animated model for
muscle myosin-based motility.
Kinesin movement along a microtubule
http://math.lbl.gov/~hwang/animation/walk9.mpeg
This site has an animated movie created by Hongyun Wang of
the movement of kinesin along a microtubule. It includes ATP
binding and hydrolysis and ADP and Pi release.
Kinesin movement along a microtubule
http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/~gelles/kamppnp/index.html
This site from the Gelles laboraotry has a movie of a single
kinesin motor moving along a microtubule. When the motor
pauses this indicates the time that it is bound to AMP-PNP. The
work was published in Biochemistry (Y Vugmeyster, E Berliner,
Jeff Gelles, Biochemistry 1998, 37:747–757).
Myosin
The Myosin Homepage
http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/myosin/myosin.html
This site has lots of very useful information on the myosin superfamily and an excellent set of links to other important sites. The
myosin phylogenetic tree, tables of the members of each
myosin class, the function of each type of myosin and sequence
comparisons are shown. An animated movie of the myosin
cross-bridge cycle is also shown.
that illustrates the two-headed motor as it moves though one
complete cycle.
Yoshio Fukui Homepage
http://pubweb.nwu.edu/~yoshifk/fukui.html
This site has an historic picture of the colocalization of myosin II
and actin filaments in Dictyostelium (the photo is dedicated to
the late Philip Presley, a former Zeiss representative at the
Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts).
Several time-lapse movies of cytokinesis and locomotion in
Dictyostelium are available here. The images in some of the
sequences are pixilated but the content is very good.
Myosin Movie
http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~wshih/gif.html
This site provides an excellent illustration of the power stroke of
myosin II using the three-dimensional crystal model of myosin and
actin. A single myosin head is shown binding to an actin filament,
pivoting and translocating the filament forward by 2.5 subunits
(10–12 nm). The sequence is not a QuickTime movie, therefore
it is not possible to replay it without refreshing or reloading the
page. In addition, it is not possible to step sequentially through
the frames. Nevertheless, the actual three-dimensional structure
of actin and myosin allows one to see the specific loops on the
myosin head that contact the actin subunit and the pivot point on
the lever arm during the power stroke.
George Langford Myosin Research
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~langford/
This site has movies and animations of vesicle transport on
microtubules and actin filaments in axoplasm of the squid giant
axon. The animation shows the tail–tail interaction of kinesin
and myosin V on vesicles and the transition of vesicles from
microtubules to actin filaments.
Neurofilaments
Neurofilament/microtubule movies
http://expmed.bwh.harvard.edu/projects/intercytoskeletal/index.
html
This page is from the Cell Biology and Cytoskeleton group at
the Brigham and Women’s hospital (Harvard Medical School).
It provides basic information on neurofilaments and movies of
neurofilament translocation along microtubules that are either
polarity marked or not.
Cell motility
Borisy Lab Movie Page
http://borisy.bocklabs.wisc.edu/pages/movies.html
This page has around 50 different movies illustrating the behaviour
of the tubulin and actin cytoskeletons in cell movement, axonal
growth and pigment organisation in melanophores. It is fascinating.
CLMIB image gallery
http://www.stc.cmu.edu/CLMIBhp/Imggallpg/
This site has time-lapse movies of myosin II in mouse fibroblasts
during division and locomotion. The image quality is the best of
all the currently available sites.
Retinal dendrites
http://thalamus.wustl.edu/wonglab/gallery.html
This site from Rachel Wong’s lab shows a number of images
and movies of retinal dendrites.
Motion of myosin V
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/bms/research/muscle/myosinv/
This site has an excellent animation of the power stroke for
myosin V, a processive motor. The images in the animation are
negative-contract electron micrographs arranged in a sequence
Computational Structural Biology
http://www.scripps.edu/mb/wriggers/#current
Willy Wrigger’s laboratory models the molecular structures
and dynamics of cell motility proteins. There are movies of the
conformational change induced in kinesin by ATP hydrolysis
Web alert
and some very large (>22 MByte) movies of phosphate release
by actin.
Miscellaneous
WWW virtual library
http://vl.bwh.harvard.edu/labs.shtml#cytoskeleton
This is a rather complete list of links to the homepages of
laboratories working on the cytoskeleton.
The Plant Golgi-GFP Web Page
http://cs3.brookes.ac.uk/schools/bms/research/molcell/hawes
/gfp/gfp.html
This site has a number of images and movies of GFP-labelled
Golgi markers in plant (Arabidopsis) cells. The two different
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markers were sialyl transferase (a predicted trans-region marker)
and the carboxy terminus of the HDEL receptor.
Web guide to GFP
http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~wfm5/gfp_gateway.html
Wallace Marhsall has developed this site all about the applications of GFP proteins. It includes numerous links to sites
devoted to the cytoskeleton.
Web alert page for cell biologists
http://www.unige.ch/sciences/biochimie/Lafont/WA_CB.
html
Find all these links (and others mentioned on previous Web
alert pages) on-line at this site.