Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2010 Apr;2(4):a000620.
doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a000620. Epub 2010 Mar 17.

Nuclear functions of actin

Affiliations
Review

Nuclear functions of actin

Neus Visa et al. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2010 Apr.

Abstract

Actin participates in several essential processes in the cell nucleus. Even though the presence of actin in the nucleus was proposed more than 30 years ago, nuclear processes that require actin have been only recently identified. Actin is part of chromatin remodeling complexes; it is associated with the transcription machineries; it becomes incorporated into newly synthesized ribonucleoproteins; and it influences long-range chromatin organization. As in the cytoplasm, nuclear actin works in conjunction with different types of actin-binding proteins that regulate actin function and bridge interactions between actin and other nuclear components.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Actin and NM1 localize to mammalian nucleoli. Homogeneous preparations of nucleoli from HeLa cells were analyzed by immunofluorescence labeling and confocal microscopy using rabbit polyclonal antibodies to actin (scale bar, 2 µm) and NM1 (scale bar, 2 µm) or corresponding preimmune sera (scale bar, 1 µm). All the specimens were coimmunostained with a mouse monoclonal antibody to fibrillarin as marker for nucleoli.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Two possible ways by which actin contributes to transcription elongation. (A) An actomyosin motor helps the transcription machinery slide along the DNA. The architecture of the motor is not well understood but we envisage that the actin-NM1 complex makes contact with both the transcription machinery and the DNA/chromatin. Two possible configurations are depicted in the figure. (B) Actin participates in the recruitment of histone modifiers to protein-coding genes. Actin binds to hnRNP proteins and becomes incorporated into the nascent pre-mRNPs. Actin forms a complex with specific hnRNP adaptor proteins such as Hrp65 in Chironomus tentans and hnRNP U in mammals, and recruits HATs that acetylate histones and facilitate transcription elongation. The HATs might be components of larger chromatin remodeling complexes that might also establish direct contacts with actin.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Blessing CA, Ugrinova GT, Goodson HV 2004. Actin and ARPs: Action in the nucleus. Trends Cell Biol 14:435–442 - PubMed
    1. Cavellan E, Asp P, Percipalle P, Östlund Farrants AK 2006. The chromatin remodelling complex WSTF-SNF2 h interacts with several nuclear proteins in transcription. J Biol Chem 281:16264–16271 - PubMed
    1. Chen M, Shen X 2007. Nuclear actin and actin-related proteins in chromatin dynamics. Curr Opin Cell Biol 19:326–330 - PubMed
    1. Chuang CH, Carpenter AE, Fuchsova B, Johnson T, de Lanerolle P, Belmont AS 2006. Long-range directional movement of an interphase chromosome site. Curr Biol 16:825–831 - PubMed
    1. Cisterna B, Malatesta M, Dieker J, Muller S, Prosperi E, Biggiogera M 2009. An active mechanism flanks and modulates the export of the small ribosomal subunits. Histochem Cell Biol 131:743–753 - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms