A ring of myosin (red) at apical junctions (green) on the wound (*) face tugs cells inwards while basal myosin spurs on cell migration.

Myosin takes both the high road and the low road to close wounds, as revealed by Tamada et al. on page 27. The motor is found in a high contractile actin ring and in bottom-dwelling membrane protrusions.

Wound closure requires a cable of actin and myosin in the cells that border the wound. The contraction of this cable draws these border cells together to fill in the hole. In flies, however, border cells seem rather to migrate inward, dragging the cells behind them forward into the wound. Now, new videos suggest that both migration and ring contraction help to close wounds in mammalian epithelia.

The videos examine myosin localization from a unique perspective. After creating a circular injury site in...

The Rockefeller University Press
2007
The Rockefeller University Press
2007
You do not currently have access to this content.