Biochemistry and Cell Biology postdoc Lorna Young is to receive the 2016 Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC) paper of the year award for her work on the assembly of filopodia—cellular antennae that detect environmental cues.
MBoC is a research journal owned by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). The award will be presented to Young at the ASCB annual meeting this December in San Francisco, where she will give a talk on her research.
“The human body is composed of hundreds of different cell types, and each type has a unique structure and function,” Young explained. Young looked at the assembly of filopodia, which are finger-like protrusions that extend from the cell membrane to get a feel of the local environment. “We wanted to understand if different cells use different tools to build filopodia.” In her article, Young and colleagues investigate this idea by watching filopodia assemble in live cells using fluorescence microscopy.
While many different types of cells have filopodia, their function can vary greatly between cells. When a white blood cell detects a bacterial invader, filopodia can grab the invader and pull it back towards the cell helping to launch an immune response. Filopodia are frequently associated with motility helping cells crawl forward. In some cells, filopodia can even reach out to communicate with neighboring cells by exchanging material.
Young discovered that a round white blood cell and a flat intestinal epithelial cell—two cells with very different structure and functions—use some of the same tools as well as a few unique ones to build these protrusive structures.
“Right now is a really exciting time for cell biology. The resolution limit of what we can see under a microscope is rapidly improving. This literally opens our eyes to new things.”
Young works with Professor Harry Higgs in the Biochemistry and Cell Biology department at the Geisel School of Medicine. You can follow Young (@MisscurLyYoung) and the Higgs lab (@hhigglab) on Twitter to hear about their latest projects.