The open source MATLAB application CellGeo is a user-friendly computational platform that allows simultaneous, automated tracking and analysis of dynamic changes in cell shape, including protrusions ranging from filopodia to lamellipodia to growth cones.

Polarity establishment in many cells is thought to occur via positive feedback that reinforces even tiny asymmetries in polarity protein distribution. Cdc42 and related GTPases are activated and accumulate in a patch of the cortex that defines the front of the cell. Positive feedback enables spontaneous polarization triggered by stochastic fluctuations, but as such fluctuations can occur at multiple locations, how do cells ensure that they make only one front? In polarizing cells of the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, positive feedback can trigger growth of several Cdc42 clusters at the same time, but this multi-cluster stage rapidly evolves to a single-cluster state, which then promotes bud emergence. By manipulating polarity protein dynamics, we show that resolution of multi-cluster intermediates occurs through a greedy competition between clusters to recruit and retain polarity proteins from a shared intracellular pool.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.11611.001

Summary Actin regulators facilitate cell migration by controlling cell protrusion architecture and dynamics. As the behavior of individual actin regulators becomes clear, we must address why cells require multiple regulators with similar functions and how they cooperate to create diverse protrusions. We characterized Diaphanous and Enabled as a model, using complementary approaches: cell culture, biophysical analysis, and Drosophila morphogenesis. We found Dia and Ena have distinct biochemical properties that contribute to the different protrusion morphologies each induces. Dia is a more processive, faster elongator, paralleling the long, stable filopodia it induces in vivo, while Ena promotes filopodia with more dynamic changes in number, length and lifetime. Acting together, Ena and Dia induce protrusions distinct from those induced by either alone, with Ena reducing Dia-driven protrusion length and number. Consistent with this, EnaEVH1 binds Dia directly and inhibits DiaFH1FH2-mediated nucleation in vitro. Finally, Ena rescues hemocyte migration defects caused by activated Dia.

Processive molecular motors take more-or-less uniformly sized steps, along spatially periodic tracks, mostly forwards but increasingly backwards under loads. Experimentally, the major steps can be resolved clearly within the noise but one knows biochemically that one or more mechanochemical substeps remain hidden in each enzymatic cycle. In order to properly interpret experimental data for back-to-forward step ratios, mean conditional step-to-step dwell times, etc., a first-passage analysis has been developed that takes account of hidden substeps in N -state sequential models. The explicit, general results differ significantly from previous treatments that identify the observed steps with complete mechanochemical cycles; e.g., the mean dwell times tau(+) and tau(-) prior to forward and back steps, respectively, are normally unequal although the dwell times tau(++) and tau(--) between successive forward and back steps are equal. Illustrative (N=2) -state examples display a wide range of behavior. The formulation extends to the case of two or more detectable transitions in a multistate cycle with hidden substeps.

We describe an approach to selectively activate a kinase in a specific protein complex or at a specific subcellular location within living cells, and within minutes. This reveals the effects of specific kinase pathways without time for genetic compensation. The new technique, dubbed RapRTAP (rapamycin regulated targeted activation of pathways) was used to dissect the role of Src kinase interactions with FAK and p130Cas in cell motility and morphodynamics. The overall effects of Src activation on cell morphology and adhesion dynamics were first quantified, without restricting effector access. Subsets of Src induced behaviors were then attributed to specific interactions between Src and the two downstream proteins. Activation of Src in the cytoplasm versus at the cell membrane also produced distinct phenotypes. The conserved nature of the kinase site modified for RapRTAP indicates that the technique can be applied to many kinases.