Ultrastructure of protrusive actin filament arrays

The actin cytoskeleton is the major force-generating machinery in the cell, which can produce pushing, pulling, and resistance forces. To accomplish these diverse functions, actin filaments, with help of numerous accessory proteins, form higher order ensembles, networks and bundles, adapted to specific tasks. Moreover, dynamic properties of the actin cytoskeleton allow a cell to constantly build, renew, and redesign actin structures according to its changing needs. High resolution architecture of actin filament arrays provides key information for understanding mechanisms of force generation. To generate pushing force, cells use coordinated polymerization of multiple actin filaments organized into branched (dendritic) networks or parallel bundles. This review summarizes our current knowledge of the structural organization of these two actin filament arrays.