The Cytoskeleton and Cell Motility

This book is directed at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students-and their teachers-who are involved in those areas of cell biology which require a basic knowledge of cytoskeletal structure, parti- cularly with respect to cell motility. It contains a core of basic information on the cytoskeleton and focuses especially on its functional aspects, from the swimming of spermatozoa to the crawling of cultured cells across their culture dish; from the transport of vesicles and organelles along nerve axons, to the orderly segregation of chromosomes at mitosis. Cytoskeleton research spans a wide range of scientific disciplines. It is as important for students or research workers investigating, for example, the deposition of the higher plant cell wall to have easy access to a core of basic information regarding microtubules as it is for someone interested in endocytosis and the fate of cell surface receptors. The authors are involved in the teaching of the cytoskeleton and cell motility at all levels of undergraduate study at University College London, but each has a research interest in different aspects of the subject: TMP in amoeboid locomotion, CAK in gliding motility and JSH in cilia, flagella and mitosis.