Disruption of microfilament organization after injection of F-actin capping proteins into living tissue culture cells

Abstract

Capping proteins are F-actin binding proteins which interfere with the in vitro growth of an actin filament by blocking one of its ends (for recent reviews see refs 1–3). The majority of such proteins described so far ‘cap’ the fast-growing (positive) end of the polar filament, thus reducing the velocity of filament growth while increasing the number of filaments being formed de novo from a monomer pool4–10. We have studied the effects of capping proteins on the organization of actin filaments in living tissue culture cells by microinjection in conjunction with fluorescence, reflection contrast and electron microscopy. Our results, reported here, indicate that capping proteins from different sources disrupt microfilament bundles in a variety of cell types causing their disintegration from the distal end towards the centre of the cell.