Cell biology articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Commentary |

    Biomaterials engineered with specific bioactive ligands, tunable mechanical properties and complex architecture have emerged as powerful tools to probe cell sensing and response to physical properties of their material surroundings, and ultimately provide designer approaches to control cell function.

    • Linqing Li
    • , Jeroen Eyckmans
    •  & Christopher S. Chen

  • News & Views |

    Cysts were generated from organoids in vitro and the removal of adherent cues was shown to play a key role in polycystic kidney disease progression. These cysts resembled those of diseased tissue phenotypically and were capable of remodelling their microenvironment.

    • Paola Romagnani

  • Article |

    Epidermal growth factor receptor and its isoform HER2 are recruited to nascent cellular adhesion sites and play an important role in the rigidity sensing of cells on stiff substrates, this activity being dependent on Src-mediated phosphorylation.

    • Mayur Saxena
    • , Shuaimin Liu
    •  & Michael P. Sheetz

  • Article |

    Increased cellular expression of RAB5A, an important regulator of endocytic processes, brings epithelial cells from a jammed state to coordinated motion, and can facilitate wound closure, gastrulation and migration in constrained environments.

    • Chiara Malinverno
    • , Salvatore Corallino
    •  & Giorgio Scita

  • News & Views |

    Forces applied to the cell surface induce stretching of the chromatin in the nucleus and a rapid increase in gene expression.

    • Tyler J. Kirby
    •  & Jan Lammerding

  • News & Views |

    In atherosclerotic plaques, patterns of calcification — which have profound implications for plaque stability and vulnerability to rupture — are determined by the collagen's content and patterning throughout the plaque.

    • Jordan D. Miller

  • News & Views |

    The walls of microtubules can self-repair bending-induced damage.

    • Bela M. Mulder
    •  & Marcel E. Janson

  • News & Views |

    Short-lived topological defects in active liquid crystals can exhibit long-range, long-lived orientational order.

    • Denis Bartolo

  • News & Views |

    The combination of topological constraints and deformability in an active system of microtubules and molecular motors leads to rich dynamic behaviour.

    • Julia M. Yeomans

  • News & Views |

    Extracellular-matrix stiffness regulates cell behaviour even when decoupled from ligand density and tethering.

    • Sanjay Kumar

  • Editorial |

    Understanding how cells sense and adapt to their environment, and engineering defined culture substrates, will be central to progress in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

  • News & Views |

    Cells use differences in the binding rates between the extracellular matrix and integrin adhesion receptors to sense matrix rigidity.

    • José R. García
    •  & Andrés J. García

  • News & Views |

    The nuclei of naive mouse embryonic stem cells that are transitioning towards differentiation expand when the cells are stretched and contract when they are compressed. What drives this auxetic phenotype is, however, unclear.

    • Ning Wang

  • News & Views |

    Physical cues from the extracellular environment influence the lineage commitment of stem cells. Now, experiments on human mesenchymal stem cells cultured on photodegradable hydrogels show that the cells' fate can also be determined by past physical environments.

    • Jeroen Eyckmans
    •  & Christopher S. Chen

  • News & Views |

    Electric fields prompt epithelial cell populations to make coordinated movements such as U-turns.

    • Nir Gov

  • Editorial |

    Materials-based imaging agents are attractive candidates for a diverse range of imaging modalities and combined imaging–therapy applications, but economic implications and practical concerns remain obstacles to their clinical translation.

  • Commentary |

    The preclinical intersection of molecular imaging and gene- and cell-based therapies will enable more informed and effective clinical translation. We discuss how imaging can monitor cell and gene fate and function in vivo and overcome barriers associated with these therapies.

    • Nigel G. Kooreman
    • , Julia D. Ransohoff
    •  & Joseph C. Wu

  • News & Views |

    Adult cells can be routinely reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells by chemical and genetic means, such as the expression of a cocktail of exogenous transcription factors. It is now shown that growing cells on substrates with aligned features such as microgrooves can enhance this process.

    • Yan Xu
    • , Longqi Liu
    •  & Miguel A. Esteban

  • News & Views |

    Advances in photochemistry have profoundly impacted the way in which biology is studied. Now, a photoactivated enzymatic patterning method that offers spatiotemporal control over the presentation of bioactive proteins to direct cells in three-dimensional culture significantly expands the available chemical toolbox.

    • Daniel L. Alge
    •  & Kristi S. Anseth

  • News & Views |

    Cells at the edges of migrating epithelial sheets pull themselves towards unfilled space regardless of their direction of motion.

    • Eric R. Dufresne
    •  & Martin A. Schwartz

  • Article |

    Many nanomaterials can induce cell autophagy, which can be either a concern in most in vivo situations or a benefit when exploited in cancer therapeutics. A family of short synthetic peptides that have a varied affinity to lanthanide oxide and lanthanide-based upconversion nanocrystals are now used to tune the degree of interaction between cells and nanocrystals, and thus the nanocrystals’ autophagy-inducing activity.

    • Yunjiao Zhang
    • , Fang Zheng
    •  & Long-Ping Wen

  • Article |

    The mechanical stresses within and between cells inside an advancing cellular monolayer are mapped experimentally. Cellular migration is found to be oriented in the direction of maximum principal stress indicating that cells collectively migrate to maintain minimal local intercellular shear stress.

    • Dhananjay T. Tambe
    • , C. Corey Hardin
    •  & Xavier Trepat

  • News & Views |

    Using a micropatterning technique, the architecture of actin networks is revealed to be influenced by the spatial organization of actin filament nucleation. Considering the geometric boundaries within live cells, implications in the realm of actin-induced cell functions are vast.

    • Denis Wirtz
    •  & Shyam B. Khatau

  • Letter |

    Actin filaments are a principal component of the cell cytoskeleton. Using micropatterning methods, physical influences on the growth of highly ordered actin structures are investigated. The spatial organization of actin nucleation sites is discovered to play an important role in establishing the architecture of actin networks.

    • Anne-Cécile Reymann
    • , Jean-Louis Martiel
    •  & Manuel Théry

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