title: The signaling mechanisms underlying cell polarity and chemotaxis.
abstract: Chemotaxis--the directed movement of cells in a gradient of chemoattractant--is essential for neutrophils to crawl to sites of inflammation and infection and for Dictyostelium discoideum (D. discoideum) to aggregate during morphogenesis. Chemoattractant-induced activation of spatially localized cellular signals causes cells to polarize and move toward the highest concentration of the chemoattractant. Extensive studies have been devoted to achieving a better understanding of the mechanism(s) used by a neutrophil to choose its direction of polarity and to crawl effectively in response to chemoattractant gradients. Recent technological advances are beginning to reveal many fascinating details of the intracellular signaling components that spatially direct the cytoskeleton of neutrophils and D. discoideum and the complementary mechanisms that make the cell's front distinct from its back.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA. feiwang@life.uiuc.edu
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000199:Actins / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D016764:Cell Polarity; D002630:Chemotactic Factors / Q000737:chemistry; D002633:Chemotaxis; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000378:metabolism; D004023:Dictyostelium / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D009504:Neutrophils / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000199:Actins; D002630:Chemotactic Factors