Motivation: As I was reading @kimMechanismDynamicSteady2025, I got curious about how actin ‘travels’ in a mobile cell. I thought this would be a great opportunity to fill in the gaps in my understanding of molecular actin (and other proteins) in live cells.
I think the water cycle Similar to how the earth has a water cycle , motile cells have an ‘actin cycle’.
I think the water cycle of earth is a good analogy to how actin (and other molecules) flow in a cell. There are a lot of processes involved in the water cycle that are sensitively dependent on each other. For example, the transport of clouds is not possible without the specific wind patterns which are created by the temperature gradient between land and sea. Without this temperature gradient, we wouldn’t have rain on land even if the evaporation of water from the oceans continue to happen that way it already does. A completely different type of interconnected chain of events in living cells that, primarily related to actin, drive the motile cells. …