Visualization and analysis of actin cytoskeleton organization in plants

Abstract

The plant cytoskeleton is a highly dynamic system that consists of two components: microfilaments and microtubules. Actin microfilaments are essential for polar growth, cytoplasmic streaming, directing polar growth, anchoring the nucleus, gravity sensing, signalling pathway integration and a number of other functions. Actin morphology and dynamics are orchestrated by a variety of small actin binding proteins, and some of them have become a source of actin interaction domains widely used as markers for microfilaments in fusions with fluorescent reporter proteins. However, older techniques are still employed for actin visualization. In this short review, we will focus on the diversity of fluorescent reporter fusions for F-actin and on approaches and existing free software for the analysis of cytoskeleton organization, mainly in Arabidopsis. Keywords: cytoskeleton, actin, microfilament, plants, cell biology, visualization, microscopy, fluorescent protein, fluorescent dye.