The “Regulation of Cytoskeletal Dynamics and Transport” Minisymposiumincorporated exciting new research on intracellular filaments.The talks delved into the regulation of filament dynamics,modes of cross-talk, and motor protein function ranging from thesingle-molecule to the cellular level. Ben Woods (Gladfelter lab,University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill) presented biophysicalmechanisms controlling septin polymerization by combining in vitroreconstitution, cell-free extracts, and physical modeling approaches.Rachel Kadzik (Munro and Kovar labs, University of Chicago;Wignall lab, Northwestern University) used similar techniques inaddition to in vivo observations in Caenorhabditis elegans to demonstratethat the alignment of actin filaments in the cytokinetic ringrequires templated elongation of new actin filaments within the ring,mediated by plastin, a rapidly bundling actin-binding protein.
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