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Force production and force sensing during clathrin-mediated endocytosis
Clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) consists of the formation of a
vesicle out of a flat membrane in eukaryotes. When membrane tension
and/or turgor pressure are high, actin dynamics is required to produce
the forces required to invaginate the membrane and pinch it off into a
vesicle. However, how the actin meshwork produces forces at the
molecular level has remained elusive, because endocytic structures are
intrinsically transient, out of equilibrium, and diffraction limited. In
this seminar, I will present results from mathematical modeling and
experiments in yeast demonstrating that actin polymerization alone
cannot produce sufficient force to invaginate the plasma membrane. I
will also present new force production mechanisms by the actin meshwork
that are not exclusively based on polymerization, and are relevant to
other subcellular processes involving actin and membranes.