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Science 27 July 2001:
Vol. 293. no. 5530, pp. 616 - 618
DOI: 10.1126/science.1063558
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Perspectives

STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY:
Actin' Up

Enrique M. De La Cruz and Thomas D. Pollard

The assembly of actin filaments through the polymerization of actin monomers must be fine-tuned by the cell. In a Perspective, De La Cruz and Pollard explain exciting new findings (Otterbein et al.) showing that ATP hydrolysis and release of a phosphate group results in one segment of actin switching from a strand to a helical conformation. This conformation change favors the interaction of certain regulatory proteins--which regulate both actin polymerization and filament disassembly--with actin monomers and filaments.

E. M. De La Cruz is in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and T. D. Pollard is in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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How does ATP hydrolysis control actin's associations?.
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