Structural mechanisms of drebrin-mediated F-actin network modulation.

Authors

W Zhao, L Y Chu, G Abis, F Oozeer, T Mulvaney, N Nagar, M Topf, P R Gordon-Weeks, M R Conte, J Atherton

Published in

Nature communications. Jun 23, 2026. Epub Jun 23, 2026.

Abstract

Drebrin modulates F-actin networks and links them to other intracellular components, regulating crucial processes including neuritogenesis, synaptic plasticity, virus internalisation and cancer invasion. Using single-particle cryo-EM we characterise drebrin's interaction with F-actin through two separate conserved actin binding domains (ABD1 and ABD2), revealing structural bases for its F-actin-modulating properties. We describe a multimodal interaction where drebrin's ABD1 can adopt two conformations and a long flexible loop connecting to ABD2 allows the two ABDs to occupy multiple relative positions along F-actin. The flexible loop connecting the two ABDs also confers some propensity to loosely bundle F-actin. Drebrin's ABDs bind across multiple actin protomers and their subdomains and modify the longitudinal inter-protomer interface, explaining its F-actin stabilising properties. Furthermore, we show drebrin's binding site on F-actin is shared with other critical actin-binding and regulatory proteins, explaining their competitive displacement.

PMID:
42337253
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 24 Jun 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.