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Basal-to-apical cadherin flow at cell junctions

Nature Cell Biology volume 9, pages 92–98 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Stable cell–cell adhesion is essential for maintaining tissue integrity, but cells are also able to relocate, implying the existence of mechanisms for coordinating cell adhesion and movement. Here, we show that, in some transformed lines, cadherin adhesion molecules exhibit a flow-like movement in a basal–apical direction at the cell junction and that this flow is associated with reorganizing actin filaments. Such flow also occurs in normal epithelial sheets, but solely at the junctions formed by moving cells. We propose that cadherin flow may provide a mechanism for facilitating the sliding of the two contacting cell membranes in morphogenetically active cell sheets.

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Figure 1: Directional movement of VE-cadherin at cell junctions.
Figure 2: Analysis of cadherin and catenin domains required for cadherin flow.
Figure 3: Actin-dependent movement of VE-cadherin.
Figure 4: Cadherin dynamics in MDCK cells.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Matsuyoshi (Kyoto University) for VE-cadherin cDNA, and N. Watanabe (Kyoto University) for critical comments. This work was supported by a grant from the program Grants-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, 606-8501, Kyoto, Japan

    Yoshiko Kametani & Masatoshi Takeichi

  2. RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, 2-2-3 Minatojima-Minamimachi, Chuo-ku, 650-0047, Kobe, Japan

    Yoshiko Kametani & Masatoshi Takeichi

Authors
  1. Yoshiko Kametani
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  2. Masatoshi Takeichi
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Contributions

Y.K. conceived and performed the experiments. Y.K. and M.T. interpreted data and wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Masatoshi Takeichi.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Kametani, Y., Takeichi, M. Basal-to-apical cadherin flow at cell junctions. Nat Cell Biol 9, 92–98 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1520

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