In macropinocytosis, cells take up micrometre-sized droplets of medium into internal
vesicles. These vesicles are acidified and fused to lysosomes, their contents digested and …

Chemotaxis, or directed migration of cells along a chemical gradient, is a highly coordinated
process that involves gradient sensing, motility, and polarity. Most of our understanding of …

Ras has been extensively studied as a promoter of cell proliferation, whereas few studies
have explored its role in migration. To investigate the direct and immediate effects of Ras …

Model organisms have been key to understanding many core biological processes.
Dictyostelium amoebae have the attributes required to perform this role for chemotaxis, and …

Numerous models explain how cells sense and migrate towards shallow chemoattractant
gradients. Studies show that an excitable signal transduction network acts as a pacemaker …

Summary Class-1 PI3-kinases are major regulators of the actin cytoskeleton, whose precise
contributions to chemotaxis, phagocytosis and macropinocytosis remain unresolved. We …

Eukaryotic phagocytes search and destroy invading microorganisms via chemotaxis and
phagocytosis. The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum is a professional phagocyte that …

Chemotaxis involves the coordinated action of separable but interrelated processes: motility,
gradient sensing, and polarization. We have hypothesized that these are mediated by …

In eukaryotic chemotaxis, the mechanisms connecting external signals to the motile
apparatus remain unclear. The role of the lipid phosphatidylinositol 3, 4, 5-trisphosphate …

RasG is a major regulator of macropinocytosis in Dictyostelium discoideum. Its activity is
under the control of an IQGAP-related protein, IqgC, which acts as a RasG-specific GAP …