The Cytoskele­ton and Cell Migra­tion

Sev­eral bac­te­r­ial and viral pathogens hijack the actin machin­ery of cells they infect to dis­sem­i­nate their infec­tion. They do this by recruit­ing actin and co-factors to pro­pel them in cyto­plasm in a rock­et­ing type régime, at the head of an actin comet tail, to jump from one cell to another, avoid­ing the sur­veil­lance of the immune sys­tem. Our recent work has focused on elu­ci­dat­ing the mech­a­nism of pathogen propul­sion.