Cell-based assays--new reports

Ramdas NM, Shivashankar GV. Cytoskeletal Control of Nuclear Morphology and Chromatin Organization. J Mol Biol. 2014 Oct 2. pii: S0022-2836(14)00495-1. PMID: 25281900.

From the abstract: "... We demonstrate here the differential influence of perinuclear actin- and microtubule-driven assemblies on nuclear architecture using pharmacological inhibitors and targeted RNA interference knockdown of cytoskeleton components in Drosophila cells. We find evidence that the loss of perinuclear actin assembly results in basolateral enhancement of microtubule organization and this is reflected functionally by enhanced nuclear dynamics. ..."

Ribeiro SA, D'Ambrosio MV, Vale RD. Induction of Focal Adhesions and Motility in Drosophila S2 cells. Mol Biol Cell. 2014 PMID: 25273555.

From the abstract: "... Here, we describe a system for inducing the formation of focal adhesions in normally non-ECM-adherent, non-motile Drosophila S2 cells. These focal adhesions contain the expected molecular markers such as talin, vinculin, and p130Cas, and they require talin for their formation. The S2 cells with induced focal adhesions also display a non-polarized form of motility on vitronectin-coated substrates. Consistent with findings in mammalian cells, the degree of motility can be tuned by changing the stiffness of the substrate and was increased after the depletion of PAK3, a p21-activated kinase. ... These results demonstrate that S2 cells, a cell line that is well studied for cytoskeletal dynamics and readily amenable to protein manipulation by RNAi, can be used to study the assembly and dynamics of focal adhesions and mechanosensitive cell motility."