Cell Motility: From Molecules to Organisms features landmark essays that provide an up to date and fascinating account of current research and concepts in cell motility.These cover the roles of molecular motors that drive movement and their interactions with the cytoskeleton as well as membrane dynamics that allow cells to change shape and to move.

Cell motility plays a key role in development - there are chapters on the genetics of cell migration, the regulation of contact repulsion in growth cones, and the progression from cell migration to cell-cell adhesion. Cell motility is directional - experts describe the molecules that regulate chemotaxis, allowing cells to migrate along pathways specified by chemical gradients.

Cell Motility: From Molecules to Organisms is a ‘must read’ for cell biologists working in a variety of fields, from development to wound healing, at all levels - post-doctoral fellows, post-graduate students and lab technicians. It is also stimulating reading for molecular and developmental biologists, biophysicists and biochemists.

Contents

1. Molecular mechanisms regulating actin filament dynamics at the leading edge of motile cells
2. The Role of Talin and Myosin VII in Adhesion – A FERM Connection
3. Do class I myosins exert their functions through regulation of actin dynamics?
4. Ephrin regulated contact repulsion of growth cones
5. Interplay between the actin cytoskeleton, focal adhesions, and microtubules
6. Initial Steps from cell migration to cell-cell adhesion
7. Using bioprobes to follow protein dynamics in living cells
8. Actin Filament Assembly: The Search for a Barbed End
9. Role of WASP family proteins in cytoskeletal reorganization and cell motility
10. Regulation and function of the small GTP-binding protein ARF6 in membrane dynamics
11. Chemotaxis of cancer cells during invasion and metastasis
12. Dynamin and cytoskeletal-dependent membrane processes
13. Regulation of microtubule dynamics in migrating cells: a new role for Rho GTPases
14. Calpain regulation of cell migration
15. Role of villin in the dynamics of actin microfilaments
16. Scar, WASP and the Arp2/3 complex in dictyostelium migration
17. Directional sensing: subcellular targeting of GPCR downstream effectors during chemotaxis
18. Cell crawling, cell behavior and biomechanics during convergence and extension
19. Regulation of cell migration in vitro and in vivo
20. Genes that control cell migration during mouse development

Index

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