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Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Micromanipulation Techniques Allowing Analysis of Morphogenetic Dynamics and Turnover of Cytoskeletal Regulators
Published on: May 12, 2018
Single-molecule speckle analysis of actin filament turnover in lamellipodia
Naoki Watanabe1, Timothy J Mitchison
1Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. naoki_watanabe@hms.harvard.edu
Abstract:
Lamellipodia are thin, veil-like extensions at the edge of cells that contain a dynamic array of actin filaments. We describe an approach for analyzing spatial regulation of actin polymerization and depolymerization in vivo in which we tracked single molecules of actin fused to the green fluorescent protein. Polymerization and the lifetime of actin filaments in lamellipodia were measured with high spatial precision. Basal polymerization and depolymerization occurred throughout lamellipodia with largely constant kinetics, and polymerization was promoted within one micron of the lamellipodium tip. Most of the actin filaments in the lamellipodium were generated by polymerization away from the tip.
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