Fluorescence microscopy of cytoskeletal proteins in situ using immunolabeling, fluorescent reagents, or expression of tagged proteins has been a common practice for decades but often with too little regard for what might not be visualized. This is especially true for assembled filamentous actin (F-actin), for which binding of fluorescently labeled phalloidin is taken as the gold standard for its quantification even though it is well known that F-actin saturated with cofilin (cofilactin) binds neither fluorescently labeled phalloidin nor genetically encoded F-actin reporters, such as LifeAct. Here, using expressed fluorescent cofilactin reporters, we show that cofilactin is the major component of some actin-containing structures in both normal and stressed neurons and present various fixation, permeabilization, and cryo-preservation methods for optimizing its observation.
CITATION STYLE
Minamide, L. S., Hylton, R., Swulius, M., & Bamburg, J. R. (2023). Visualizing Cofilin-Actin Filaments by Immunofluorescence and CryoEM: Essential Steps for Observing Cofilactin in Cells. In Methods in Molecular Biology (Vol. 2593, pp. 265–281). Humana Press Inc. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2811-9_18
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.