Motility articles within Nature Communications

Featured

• Article | 14 June 2011

  Convergent evolution in locomotory patterns of flying and swimming animals

  Undulating flight, an efficient mode of locomotion in flying birds, can theoretically also result in efficient locomotion in water. Here we demonstrate gait patterns resembling undulating flight in four marine vertebrate species comprising sharks and pinnipeds.

  • Adrian C. Gleiss
  • , Salvador J. Jorgensen
  •  & Rory P. Wilson

• Article | 12 April 2011

  Frequency-dependent recruitment of V2a interneurons during fictive locomotion in the mouse spinal cord

  The spinal V2a interneurons control left–right limb alternation during mouse locomotion, but only at high frequencies. In this study, the authors show that only half of these neurons are active during locomotion, and that they receive increasing synaptic drive to increase their activity as locomotion accelerates.

  • Guisheng Zhong
  • , Kamal Sharma
  •  & Ronald M. Harris-Warrick

• Article
  29 March 2011 | Open Access

  The deubiquitinating enzyme USP17 is essential for GTPase subcellular localization and cell motility

  Deubiquitinating enzymes are involved in multiple cellular processes, including cell viability. The authors reveal a role for the deubiquitinating enzyme, USP17, in the migration of cells in response to chemokines and show that USP17 is required for the relocalization of GTPases involved in cell motility.

  • Michelle de la Vega
  • , Alyson A. Kelvin
  •  & James A. Johnston