Actin News and Research

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Enzyme Knockdown Repolarizes Immune Cells for Targeted Immunotherapy

Our bodies contain immune cells called macrophages.

8 Oct 2026

Targeting Host Cellular Repair Mechanisms Enhances Tissue Resistance to Infection

Epithelial cells form the body's frontline barriers, helping keep microbes, toxins, and other harmful substances out. Yet these protective cells are constantly exposed to threats, including microbial infections.

6 Oct 2026

Loss of Matrix Receptors Impairs Actin Cytoskeleton Remodeling, Cell Spreading, and Osteogenic Differentiation

During bone healing, skeletal progenitor cells (SPCs), which can multiply and develop into bone-forming cells, move to the injury site and help build new bone.

9 Sep 2026

Unexpected Mechanism Shows Muscle Cells Limit Rather Than Drive Membrane Growth

Every movement we make, from blinking to sprinting, depends on the ability of muscle fibers to contract in a rapid and coordinated way. Achieving this precision requires an intricate internal membrane network known as the transverse tubule, or T-tubule, system.

3 Sep 2026

Basel Study Challenges Long-Held Assumptions About Coronin Proteins

Scientific progress comes not only from discovering something entirely new, but also from taking a fresh look at long-held assumptions.

19 Aug 2026

Sustained Stretching Reshapes Keratin Cytoskeleton in Epithelial Cells

Prolonged mechanical stress induces a dramatic keratin reorganization, affecting nuclear protection and offering insights into cellular resilience mechanisms.

5 Aug 2026

Simple Synthetic Cells Change Shape Without Complex Biochemical Signaling Pathways

Using simple artificial cells, a research group led by Makito Miyazaki of the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) in Japan have uncovered fundamental physical principles that govern how living cells change their shape.

5 Aug 2026

Uncovering New Pathological Pathways Behind Sepsis Triggered Circulatory Failure Risks

Sepsis triggers widespread inflammation, circulatory failure and metabolic stress, and cardiac dysfunction is a common complication associated with sharply poorer outcomes.

3 Aug 2026

Scientists Discover How Heart Muscle Cells Remodel Actin Filaments

Biophysicists unraveled a mystery of how muscles form at the molecular level and how they maintain their function.

30 Jul 2026

Basement Membrane Remodeling Drives Melanocyte Dedifferentiation in Vitiligo Skin Lesions

Vitiligo is an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system attacks and destroys melanocytes, the cells that produce the skin pigment melanin. Once the melanocytes are gone, the skin turns white, leading to the characteristic skin patches of the disease.

23 Jul 2026

Microtubule-Stabilizing Protein Camsap3 Proves Essential for Female Fertility

Female fertility depends on the successful growth and maturation of eggs (oocytes) within ovarian follicles.

3 Jul 2026

Rapid Wound Healing in Jellyfish Offers Insights Into How Human Skin Repairs

Jocelyn Malamy first witnessed jellyfish cells "walk" toward each other to close a wound at the Marine Biological Laboratory a decade ago.

1 Jul 2026

Self-Propelled Actin Structures Drive Shape Changes in Human Cells

Every time a white blood cell engulfs a bacterium, a neuron extends a projection to connect with a neighboring cell, or when a cancer cell forcefully squeezes through tissue to spread, the cell must change its shape to accommodate the movement.

26 Jun 2026

Extracellular Acidosis Disrupts Internal Transport Systems of Living Cells

A new scientific study led by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) describes the mechano-chemical mechanism by which the acidity of the cellular environment destabilizes microtubules, the "avenues" that organize internal cellular traffic.

27 May 2026

Essential Keratin Guides Embryonic Cell Movement in Developing Zebrafish

Hair, nails, and horns, all made up of keratin, are some of the hardest and most resilient structures in animals. Inside zebrafish cells, keratin plays a distinct role, giving them the strength they need to move together as a coherent tissue while modulating the driving forces behind their movement during early development. But what happens when keratin is missing?

22 May 2026

New 3D Human Liver Model Mimics Chronic Disease For 30 Days

Researchers developed a 3D liver model that functions for a month, replicating inflammation and fibrosis, crucial for studying liver diseases and therapies.

19 May 2026

Scientists Reveal How Cells Translate Force Into Chemical Signals

Cells constantly probe their environments, searching for physical cues that guide their behavior. And yet a cell's response to its environment is always biochemical, mediated by the chemistry of its internal protein machinery.

24 Apr 2026

Physics Explains How Neural Tube Closure Occurs in Embryos

In about one out of every 1,000 pregnancies, the neural tube, a key nervous system structure, fails to close properly.

21 Apr 2026

Discovery Challenges the Theory That Proteins Move Mainly by Diffusion

Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University have uncovered a previously unknown system of internal "trade winds" that help cells rapidly move essential proteins to the front of the cell, reshaping how researchers understand cell migration, cancer spread and wound healing.

31 Mar 2026

Fast Motor Protein Drives Actin Filaments Into Large Unidirectionally Rotating Rings

Understanding how microscopic interactions between proteins in cells produce large-scale organization and asymmetry is a fundamental question in cell biology.

19 Feb 2026