The enzyme managing protein skeleton of the cell, making it different for intracellular and needs for the movement of the whole cell .
We can walk and run due to the fact that we have muscles and a skeleton. But the power of movement not only with us – even single-celled organisms can move, and our own cells, forming a large and complicated piece of the body, can crawl from place to place.
Cytoskeletal – тонкимицветнымилиниямипоказанымикротрубочки. Source: Pakorn Kanchanawong, National University of Singapore and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health.
Moreover, if cells could not move, no complex human (or animal) simply could not happen – because during embryonic development germ cells migrate continuously under the action of chemical signals, and without such migrations are neither organs nor tissues can not form properly. In addition, there is constantly travelling immune cells that gather in areas of inflammation and/or infections.
Embryogenesis and immune activity are not the only examples where you can not do without cell activity, and in all such cases, the leading role played by the cytoskeleton – system of protein filaments and tubules that serve as the cells of something like bone. Two of the most prominent cytoskeletal protein actin, forming actin filaments-the filaments and tubulin that form microtubules. Both create a dynamic framework that constantly “breathes”: the tube and the threads disappear in one place, extended in another, etc. in Addition to actin with tubulin, there are other proteins – e.g., myosin, along with actin forms the contractile apparatus of muscle cells.
But, in addition to mobility in the surrounding space, there is also the intracellular transport of organelles and large molecular complexes move through the cytoplasm of the cell using the cytoskeleton as rails or highway. “Freight cars” and “trucks” here are Geneina special proteins and kinesins. Of course, the cage must be rather complicated apparatus traffic management, and here again managers are proteins-enzymes that modify the molecules of the cytoskeleton and molecules-carriers, thereby changing their activity.
In the fullness of the picture of regulation we are still not quite present, but studies here are very active – so, recently in one of the laboratories of the research Institute of physico-chemical biology named after A. N. Belozersky MSU was able to detect a protein kinase LOSK (Long Ste20-like Kinase is the kinase most related to the family of enzymes called Ste20), encoded by the gene SLK. All kinases are able to control the activity of other proteins by attaching to them a phosphate group (i.e. by phosphorylation). Newfound same LOSK, as it turned out, affects the structure of the cytoskeleton and on cell motility.
But, as mentioned above, the cytoskeleton is needed not only for crawling from place to place, but also for intracellular movement of traffic. LOSK can affect those skills? – . However, as studies by Anton Burakov, doctor of biological Sciences, senior researcher of Institute of physico-chemical biology named after A. N. Belozersky, and Elena Nadezhdina, doctor of biological Sciences, head of the group of physiology of the cytoskeleton of the Institute of protein research RAS, these spheres of life cellular kinase LOSK is managed differently.
When it comes to mobility of whole cells, kinase modifies one set of proteins but when it comes to the rearrangements of the cytoskeleton for intracellular needs, it modifies other molecules. In an article in the journal Cytoskeleton , the authors write that in the second case, LOSK acts through protein dynactin, which, in turn, affect the activity of the “carrier” of tineina. As a result, dynein starts to work with the centrosome – the so-called special cellular structures that organize the work of the microtubules.
The importance of the results is easy to understand if you remember that from the centrosome depends on the distribution of genetic material during cellular division. The chromosome is the same load that you want to move to the right place, and here they diverge to the poles of dividing cells with the help of microtubules, which dragged them to the centrosome. Malfunction of the cytoskeleton can lead to incorrect distribution of chromosomes, which, in turn, can cause serious illness, including cancer. It is known that in cancer cells the centrosome is not two, as expected, but more than that, obviously, is one of the causes related disease molecular genetic disorder.
It was thought the directed movement of cells depends on the architecture of the microtubule system, and that everything affects it, will be closely linked to the ability of cells to move. But, as it turns out, you actually have two independent chains of molecular reactions, although both runs the same enzyme LOSK.
If you are now using metastatic cancer drugs targeting microtubules; obviously, new data could add those drugs for effectiveness and accuracy; in addition, they could use and immunologists, and trauma faced with the problem of wound healing and tissue regeneration, and those involved in embryonic development, etc.
However, according to Anton Burakov, “the use of the <received> of future performance in medical practice (development of specific inhibitors of motility for the treatment of cancer or specific stimulators of the motility for the treatment of diseases of the blood vessels) depends on an appropriate legislative framework”.
Author: Cyril Stasevich
Source: nkj.EN
Chromosomes move independently from their own cells
