Historical Background
Actin is a ubiquitously expressed protein in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Monomers of actin polymerize into actin filaments and represent one of the three major components of the cellular cytoskeleton, also including microtubules and intermediate filaments. The discovery of the protein actin preceded the discovery of actin filaments and is dated back to the end of the 1800s, in terms of its earliest detection. The initial detection of actin was performed using vertebrate muscle tissue wherein it is in great abundance. The complete sequence of actin was initially described at a Cold Spring Harbor Symposium in 1971 and subsequently published in 1973. The solution of the structure of actin greatly benefited from the unexpected observations that actin formed high-affinity complexes with deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I) and profilin, the latter being a protein with now well-understood roles in the regulation of actin biology, while the significance of the former...
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Gallo, G. (2018). ACT. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_101971
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_101971
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