Chemotaxis: new role for Ras revealed

Signaling network from GPCR to the actin cytoskeleton during chemotaxis

Chemotaxis is crucial for many physiological processes including the recruitment of leukocytes to sites of infection, trafficking of lymphocytes in the human body, and metastasis of cancer cells. A family of small proteins, chemokines, serves as the signals, and a family of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) detects chemokines and direct cell migration. One of the basic questions in chemotaxis of eukaryotes is how a GPCR transduces signals to control the assembly of the actin network that generates directional force for cell migration. Over the past decade, a variety of signaling components have been implicated to transduce the GPCR signaling to the actin cytoskeleton. Studies in a lower eukaryotic organism, Dictyostelium discoideum, have allowed us to discover evolutionary conversed components involved in the GPCR-controlled actin network during chemotaxis. However, complete pathways linking GPCR to the actin network are still far from clear. Here we first summarize the previous studies on these components, and then update with our finding showing a new pathway, consisting of a GPCR, Gβγ, Elmo/Dock, Rac and Arp2/3 and actin. We suggest that this pathway serves as a direct linkage between the GPCR/G-protein, the chemoattractant sensing machinery, and the actin cytoskeleton, the machinery of cell movement during chemotaxis of eukaryotic cells.