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Cellular mechanosensing

Sharing the force

Nature Materials volume 12, pages 948–949 (2013)Cite this article

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Cells can sense their environment by applying and responding to mechanical forces, yet how these forces are transmitted through the cell's cytoskeleton is largely unknown. Now, a combination of experiments and computer simulations shows how forces applied to the cell cortex are synergistically shared by motor proteins and crosslinkers.

When it comes to the response of cells to dynamic changes in mechanical loading, the actin cytoskeleton is the main player1. It is able to adapt its structure to mechanical perturbations, and this adaptation has also been seen in reconstituted systems that mimic it2,3. Yet the underlying molecular mechanisms are far from being understood. It has become increasingly clear that what makes the actin cytoskeleton mechanosensitive is not a single mechanotransduction process, but that there exists a complicated network of mechanosensitive processes that integrates many different signals into a complex response. This is especially true for the interaction of cells with substrates4,5. Now, Douglas Robinson and colleagues report in Nature Materials a systematic experimental and modelling investigation of the role of a large range of proteins in mechanosensing6. Their findings demonstrate that different types of mechanical load lead to different rates of accumulation of cytoskeletal motor and crosslinker proteins, and that these proteins synergistically share the transmitted forces.

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Figure 1: Schematic of the micropipette-aspiration experiment6.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Andreas Bausch is at the Lehrstuhl für Zellbiophysik E27, Technische Universität München, 85748 Garching, Germany,

    Andreas R. Bausch

  2. Ulrich Schwarz is at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Heidelberg, Philosophenweg 19, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany,

    Ulrich S. Schwarz

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  1. Andreas R. Bausch
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  2. Ulrich S. Schwarz
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Correspondence to Andreas R. Bausch or Ulrich S. Schwarz.

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Bausch, A., Schwarz, U. Sharing the force. Nature Mater 12, 948–949 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3791

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