Cell Signaling by Extracellular Matrix Stiffness
| Dates: | 19 January 2015 |
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| Times: | 12:00 - 12:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Faculty of Life Sciences |
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| Speaker: | Yongho Bae |
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Extracellular matrix (ECM) stiffness is transduced into cellular stiffness, signaling, and changes in cellular behavior. Integrins and several of their associated focal adhesion proteins have been implicated in sensing ECM stiffness. We investigated how an initial sensing event is translated into cellular stiffness and a biologically interpretable signal. We found that a pathway consisting of FAK, Cas, and Rac selectively transduced ECM stiffness into stable cellular stiffness, increased abundance of cyclin D1, and promoted S phase entry. Rac-dependent intracellular stiffening involved its binding partner lamellipodin, a protein that transmits Rac signals to the cytoskeleton during cell migration. Our findings establish that mechanotransduction by a FAK-Cas-Rac-lamellipodin signaling module converts the external information encoded by ECM stiffness into stable cellular stiffness and mechanosensitive cell cycling.
Speaker
Yongho Bae
Role: American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellow
Organisation: University of Pennsylvania
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B.4208
Michael Smith Building
Manchester
