FUNCTIONS OF MOTOR PROTEINS IN ECHINODERM EMBRYOS - AN ARGUMENT IN SUPPORT OF ANTIBODY INHIBITION EXPERIMENTS

Antibody inhibition experiments are proving to be extremely valuable i n probing the in vivo functions of actin-and microtubule-based motor p roteins in the early development of echinoderm embryos, despite some s kepticism among many cell biologists concerning the reliability of thi s approach. Antibody inhibition has revealed that motor proteins parti cipate in diverse events during early echinoderm development, includin g mitosis, cytokinesis, the transport of exocytotic vesicles, and the assembly of motile cilia. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.