ADF and cofilin-1 collaborate to promote cortical actin flow and the leader bleb-based migration of confined cells

  1. Maria F Ullo
  2. Jeremy S Logue  Is a corresponding author
  1. Albany Medical College, United States

Abstract

Melanoma cells have been shown to undergo fast amoeboid (leader bleb-based) migration, requiring a single large bleb for migration. In leader blebs, is a rapid flow of cortical actin that drives the cell forward. Using RNAi, we find that co-depleting cofilin-1 and ADF led to a large increase in cortical actin, suggesting that both proteins regulate cortical actin. Furthermore, severing factors can promote contractility through the regulation of actin architecture. However, RNAi of cofilin-1 but not ADF led to a significant decrease in cell stiffness. We found cofilin-1 to be enriched at leader bleb necks, whereas RNAi of cofilin-1 and ADF reduced bleb sizes and the frequency of motile cells. Strikingly, cells without cofilin-1 and ADF had blebs with abnormally long necks. Many of these blebs failed to retract and displayed slow actin turnover. Collectively, our data identifies cofilin-1 and ADF as actin remodeling factors required for fast amoeboid migration.

Data availability

Source data files for Figures 1, 2, and 5 have been provided.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Maria F Ullo

    Regenerative and Cancer Cell Biology, Albany Medical College, Albany, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Jeremy S Logue

    Regenerative and Cancer Cell Biology, Albany Medical College, Albany, United States
    For correspondence
    loguej@mail.amc.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-5274-2052

Funding

Melanoma Research Alliance (688232)

  • Maria F Ullo
  • Jeremy S Logue

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2021, Ullo & Logue

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Maria F Ullo
  2. Jeremy S Logue
(2021)
ADF and cofilin-1 collaborate to promote cortical actin flow and the leader bleb-based migration of confined cells
eLife 10:e67856.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67856

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https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67856

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