New study: The filamentous legs of cells adopt various flexible movements to sense their cellular surroundings

Each of us has a special way of exploring the dangers surrounding him or even communicating with his neighbors and his environment, as the organism uses its different senses to clairvoyance about its surroundings and then determine its movement and behavior. Rather, they move and always sense each other and fall into each other's injury.

Cells have 'filopodia', which are appendages that extend at the leading edge of the cell, causing it to move forward. These filamentous legs are composed of myosin proteins and actin proteins that combine their units and intertwine together to form long filaments of actin, which in turn push the front of the filamentous legs to move forward.

These threadlike legs resemble the arms of an octopus, pushing the cell toward its target as if it were a predator stalking its prey. But how can these stringy legs sense the environment around them without having senses to help them do so?

Recently, a research study - published in the journal Nature Communications on March 28 - revealed the mechanism by which these threadlike legs explore the dimensions around them, as the study indicated that these legs adopt several flexible kinetic mechanisms, including Twisting, rotating, stretching and contracting until you can.

Flexible movements

According to the report , published by the "Science Alert" website, the researchers say that "these cellular structures play a pivotal role in exploring the surrounding environment, in generating the mechanical forces necessary for cell movement, and in transmitting chemical signals through nanochannels between cells," all of which are well-established roles. Previous studies showed them, but how these structures rotate and move mechanically was not known.

According to the press release issued by the Danish University of Copenhagen in response to the study, the actin filaments that make up these filamentous legs combine a number of torsion and rotation movements that have been observed at different stages of cell development, ranging from early cells to severe cells. differentiation;

The actin filaments that make up the filamentous legs have flexibility that helps them to twist and rotate (island).

The researchers noted - in their research paper - that "the flexibility of these legs is very complex, as they show a fertile behavior that combines torsion, rotation, contraction, stretching, as well as changing the shape, which enables them to explore the three-dimensional space around them."

Physiological and pathological roles

The researchers based their study on cancer cells, which are characterized by greater activity and ability to move and spread, and therefore inhibiting this mechanism in cancer cells is a way to attack cancer and stop its spread.

To simplify the matter, it is possible to compare these threaded legs to an elastic rubber band, and when the rubber band is not twisted, it does not have any forces, but when you twist this tape while holding its ends and rotating both in opposite directions, it will contract. Hence, this twisting and contraction generates a force that helps the stringy legs move in a specific direction and makes them very flexible.

Concerning this flexible movement, Natasha Leggins, the first author of the study, said: “The ability of the actin filaments to bend and twist enables the filamentous legs to fully explore the space around them, and also allows them to penetrate other tissues in their environment if they wish to do so.”

This discovered mechanism appears to be present in all types of normal as well as cancerous cells. However, it is also important to study this mechanism in embryonic stem cells and in brain cells that also depend on nematodes for their growth and locomotion.