Rotation of stress fibers in migrating fish keratocytes

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26650050
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Biophysics
• Research Institution: Yamaguchi University
• Principal Investigator: Iwadate Yoshiaki 山口大学, 大学院創成科学研究科, 准教授 (40298170)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: ケラトサイト / 細胞遊走 / アメーバ運動 / アクチン / ストレスファイバー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Crawling migration plays an essential role in a variety of biological phenomena. Keratocytes are wound-healing cells in fish skin. Stress fibers in keratocytes align almost perpendicular to the migration-direction. It seems that in order to efficiently retract the rear, it is better that the stress fibers align parallel to it. The unique alignment of stress fibers in keratocytes may play other roles. Here, we reveal that the stress fibers are stereoscopically arranged so as to surround the cytoplasm in the cell body; we directly show, in sequential three-dimensional recordings, their rolling motion during migration. Ablation of parts of the stress fibers induced the collapse of the left-right balance of crawling migration. The rotation of these stress fibers plays the role of a wheel in crawling migration of keratocytes.

Free Research Field

生物物理学