Today, I’d like to give you an overview about methods in actin research with validated R&D products and kits which will allow you to measure binding to actin and effects on the polymerisation dynamics of actin.

Actin functions as one of the major cytoskeleton structures. It is involved in a plethora of processes in cell biology:  stabilizing the cell shape, cell movements (e.g. cell migration)  and intracellular movements and transport mechanisms.

Actin is a 43 kDa protein that is very highly conserved between species. Actin has three main isotypes (α-actin, β-actin and γ-actin), which show >90% amino-acid (aa) homology between isotypes and >98% homology within members of a particular isotypic group.

In previous posts,  I invited you to look at versatile methods to

• Visualize actin: Focus on Actin staining and visualization
• Measure actin binding: Focus on Actin – Detection of actin binding and actin binding proteins
• Measure actin polymerization: Focus on Actin – Measuring actin polymerization

Fig. 1: Double-helical structure of actin filaments (provided by Cytoskeleton Inc.)

Today, let’s focus on a method which enables researchers to measure the ratio between monomeric globular actin (G actin) and filamentous actin (F actin) in cells, thus giving a good insight in the status of actin dynamics.