Discoveries
Protein Interactions
Protein Interactions
Proteins—large, complex molecules—catalyze virtually all of the chemical reactions that take place in the body. We study their interactions to discover how they heal or how they harm.

Imaging method highlights new role for cellular “skeleton” protein

While your skeleton helps your body to move, fine skeleton-like filaments within your cells likewise help cellular structures to move. Now, Staff Scientist Uri Manor and co-first authors Cara Schiavon and Tong Zhang have developed a new imaging method that lets them monitor a small subset of these filaments, called actin. They observed how actin mediates an important function: helping the cellular “power stations” known as mitochondria divide in two. The work could provide a better understanding of mitochondrial dysfunction, which has been linked to cancer, aging and neurodegenerative diseases.

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