All cells experience mechanical forces, yet how they increase energy production to meet the demands of force response remains incompletely understood. This

The actin-rich cell cortex is a viscoelastic structure essential for processes such as cell migration and division, yet the full spectrum of actin assembly factors that build and regulate the cortex i...

The Arp2/3 complex in mammals, consists of 8 iso-complexes with different properties as there are two isoforms of the Arp3, ArpC1 and ArpC5 subunits. All iso-complexes still generate actin branches wh...

Kage et al. report a novel phosphorylation-dependent interaction between INF2 and VAP proteins. Increased cytoplasmic calcium stimulates INF2 phosphorylation, which, in turn, allows VAP binding. The I...

During cytokinesis in amphibian and echinoderm embryos, propagating waves of Rho activity and F-actin assembly - cortical excitability - are amplified and focused at the equatorial cortex by the mitot...

The sequential assembly of over 50 proteins during clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) is well documented in yeast. However, the mechanisms governing this ordered recruitment remain poorly understood....

Accessible cholesterol, the pool of membrane cholesterol with high chemical activity, regulates vital processes including vertebrate development and pathogen evasion. The mechanisms that govern plasma...

Molecular organization of the plasma membrane at nano- and micrometer scales is critical for its function in all living cells. This emerges not only from the self-assembly of lipids and proteins but a...

The surface of mammalian cells is a multi-layered composite structure. The authors combine advanced biophysical methods with cryo-electron tomography to identify the gap between the membrane and the a...

Animal cells extensively remodel their cytoskeleton during differentiation and can notably switch between two major motility modes: flagellum-based swimming and actin-based crawling. We previously sho...

Zhang et al. demonstrate that calcium-bound calmodulin directly binds to the neuropathy-associated formin INF2, triggering an allosteric rearrangement that relieves autoinhibition and drives actin fil...

Microtubules are essential components of the cytoskeleton, yet important links between their molecular properties and organismal functions remain unresolved. In this Roadmap, Janke et al. discuss key ...

In primary cardiomyocyte cell cultures, α-actinin-2 phosphorylation at the actin-binding domain (ABD) increases with mechanical stress, facilitating adaptation to varying forces. Nevertheless, it is…