Cytoskeleton articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Article |

    Microtubules respond to mechanical compression by deforming, becoming more stable, which results in CLASP2 recruitment to the distorted shaft—a process crucial for cell migration through confined spaces.

    • Yuhui Li
    • , Ondřej Kučera
    •  & Manuel Théry

  • News & Views |

    Integrin-mediated substrate-rigidity sensing triggers microtubule acetylation, modulating mechanosensitive cellular responses and focal adhesion dynamics, subsequently promoting actomyosin organization and collective cell migration.

    • Kseniia Porshneva
    •  & Guillaume Montagnac

  • Article |

    Substrate-rigidity-dependent microtubule acetylation is now shown to be triggered by mechanosensing at focal adhesions, and in turn controls the mechanosensitivity of Yes-associated protein (YAP) translocation, focal adhesion distribution, actomyosin contractility and cell migration.

    • Shailaja Seetharaman
    • , Benoit Vianay
    •  & Sandrine Etienne-Manneville

  • Article |

    The role of actin/tropomyosin filaments in the assembly of cell–substrate adhesions has been investigated and it is now shown by cryo-electron tomography that they are essential for adhesion assembly and also regulate mechanosensing, matrix remodelling and transformation of cells towards a cancer phenotype.

    • Maria Lastra Cagigas
    • , Nicole S. Bryce
    •  & Edna C. Hardeman

  • News & Views |

    Stress fibres form a fully integrated meshwork with the submembranous contractile actin cortex that generates and propagates traction forces across the entire cell.

    • Guillaume Charras

  • Article |

    The mechanism of stress fibre assembly by the coalescence of actin filaments in the cell cortex has now been found to account for the transmission of mechanical forces throughout the entire cell along stress fibres.

    • Timothée Vignaud
    • , Calina Copos
    •  & Laetitia Kurzawa

  • News & Views |

    While integrin-based adhesions are thought to underlie many aspects of cell response to localized tension, another matrix receptor, syndecan-4, has now been shown to act as a mechanosensor, which triggers cell-wide integrin activation and adhesion reinforcement.

    • Christophe Guilluy
    •  & Monika E. Dolega

  • News & Views |

    Mutations in lamins in skeletal muscle cells have been shown to reduce nuclear stability, increase nuclear envelope rupture, and induce DNA damage and cell death. New research shows that limiting mechanical loads can rescue myofibre function and viability.

    • Joel C. Eissenberg
    •  & Susana Gonzalo

  • News & Views |

    Cancer cells have now been shown to lack rigidity-sensing due to alteration in cytoskeletal sensor proteins, but can be reversed from a transformed to a rigidity-dependent growth state by the sensor proteins, resulting in restoration of contractility and adhesion.

    • Edna C. Hardeman
    •  & Peter W. Gunning

  • Article |

    Lamin mutations responsible for muscular dystrophy are shown to reduce nuclear envelope stability, resulting in mechanically induced nuclear envelope rupture, DNA damage and activation of DNA damage response pathways that lead to muscle cell death. Preventing nuclear envelope damage by reducing cytoskeletal forces on the nucleus improves muscle fibre health and function.

    • Ashley J. Earle
    • , Tyler J. Kirby
    •  & Jan Lammerding

  • Article |

    Anticancer drugs such as Taxol can affect microtubule dynamics and organization in cells. Direct visualization of the action of such drugs has shown that they can trigger local and cooperative changes in microtubule lattice and induce formation of stable microtubule regions that promote rescues.

    • Ankit Rai
    • , Tianyang Liu
    •  & Anna Akhmanova

  • 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 |

    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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