How a cell assembles its internal machinery required for cell
movement has been revealed for the first time. The discovery, by
scientists in Singapore, is published in the October 2008 issue
of Cell. This research by Thomas Leung, Ph.D., and his team in
the GSK-IMCB Group at the Institute of Molecular and Cell
Biology (IMCB), under Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology
and Research (A*STAR), is fundamental to the understanding of
how a cell responds to its external environment. The findings
have widespread implications in the fields of cancer growth and
spread, wound- healing, learning and memory, and developmental
biology. The researchers discovered a complex of three proteins
that directly regulates the myosin network within a cell, thus
generating traction force to propel the cell forward. (Myosin is
the most common protein found in muscle cells, and is
responsible for the elastic and contractile properties of
muscle. A different form of myosin is involved in cell
movement.) This action of the tripart