Hydrostatic pressure shows that lamellipodial motility in Ascaris sperm requires membrane-associated major sperm protein filament nucleation and elongation.

Sperm from nematodes use a major sperm protein (MSP) cytoskeleton in place of an actin cytoskeleton to drive their ameboid locomotion. Motility is coupled to the assembly of MSP fibers near the leading edge of the pseudopod plasma membrane. This unique motility system has been reconstituted in vitro in cell-free extracts of sperm from Ascaris suum: inside-out vesicles derived from the plasma membrane trigger assembly of meshworks of MSP filaments, called fibers, that push the vesicle forward as they grow (Italiano, J.E., Jr., T.M. Roberts, M. Stewart, and C.A. Fontana. 1996. Cell. 84:105-114). We used changes in hydrostatic pressure within a microscope optical chamber to investigate the mechanism of assembly of the motile apparatus. The effects of pressure on the MSP cytoskeleton in vivo and in vitro were similar: pressures >50 atm slowed and >300 atm stopped fiber growth. We focused on the in vitro system to show that filament assembly occurs in the immediate vicinity of the vesicle. At 300 atm, fibers were stable, but vesicles often detached from the ends of fibers. When the pressure was dropped, normal fiber growth occurred from detached vesicles but the ends of fibers without vesicles did not grow. Below 300 atm, pressure modulates both the number of filaments assembled at the vesicle (proportional to fiber optical density and filament nucleation rate), and their rate of assembly (proportional to the rates of fiber growth and filament elongation). Thus, fiber growth is not simply because of the addition of subunits onto the ends of existing filaments, but rather is regulated by pressure-sensitive factors at or near the vesicle surface. Once a filament is incorporated into a fiber, its rates of addition and loss of subunits are very slow and disassembly occurs by pathways distinct from assembly. The effects of pressure on fiber assembly are sensitive to dilution of the extract but largely independent of MSP concentration, indicating that a cytosolic component other than MSP is required for vesicle-association filament nucleation and elongation. Based on these data we present a model for the mechanism of locomotion-associated MSP polymerization the principles of which may apply generally to the way cells assemble filaments locally to drive protrusion of the leading edge.