Cell adhesion articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Article |

    Viscoelasticity is a universal mechanical feature of the extracellular matrix. Here the authors show that the extracellular matrix viscoelasticity guides tissue growth and symmetry breaking, a fundamental process in morphogenesis and oncogenesis.

    • Alberto Elosegui-Artola
    • , Anupam Gupta
    •  & David J. Mooney

  • News & Views |

    By maximizing cell–substrate force transmission, cancer cells can migrate towards either stiffer or softer substrate regions.

    • Amy E. M. Beedle
    •  & Pere Roca-Cusachs

  • 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

  • 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

  • Article |

    Receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)–Ras oncogenes have now been shown to reprogram normal primary human and mouse cells into tumour precursors by empowering cellular mechanotransduction, in a process requiring permissive extracellular-matrix rigidity and intracellular YAP/TAZ/Rac mechanical signalling sustained by activated oncogenes.

    • Tito Panciera
    • , Anna Citron
    •  & Stefano Piccolo

  • 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 |

    A mechanism of cell response to localized tension shows that syndecan-4 synergizes with EGFR to elicit a mechanosignalling cascade that leads to adaptive cell stiffening through PI3K/kindlin-2 mediated integrin activation.

    • Antonios Chronopoulos
    • , Stephen D. Thorpe
    •  & Armando E. del Río Hernández

  • News & Views |

    Nanofibre mimetic substrates reveal the presence of integrin nanoclusters bridged by unliganded receptors during early cell–matrix adhesion.

    • E. Ada Cavalcanti-Adam

  • News & Views |

    With their ability to give rise to many different cell types, stem cells have long been a target of scientists who seek to achieve control over their differentiation. New evidence suggests that stem cells influence their own fates through protein deposition and physical remodelling of their microenvironment.

    • Eric L. Qiao
    • , Sanjay Kumar
    •  & David V. Schaffer

  • News & Views |

    An intermediate affinity state of integrin αIIBβ3 has been identified to be a key player in platelet mechanosignalling.

    • X. Frank Zhang
    •  & Xuanhong Cheng

  • News & Views |

    Macrophage confinement reduces the ‘late’ inflammatory gene response to lipopolysaccharide through myocardin-related transcription factor, an actin-binding transcription factor.

    • Wendy F. Liu

  • News & Views |

    Single-cell force spectroscopy reveals rapid, biphasic integrin activation and reinforcement of cell–matrix bonds during the initial steps of fibroblast adhesion.

    • Ning Wang

  • Editorial |

    As the role of biophysical cues in regulating cell behaviour is increasingly understood, more evidence in the field of bioengineering indicates how such signals can affect cells and tissues.

  • 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

  • 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 |

    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 |

    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 |

    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

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