An EGFR autocrine loop encodes a slow-reacting but dominant mode of mechanotransduction in a polarized epithelium.

ABSTRACT: The mechanical landscape in biological systems can be complex and dynamic, with contrasting sustained and fluctuating loads regularly superposed within the same tissue. How resident cells discriminate between these scenarios to respond accordingly remains largely unknown. Here, we show that a step increase in compressive stress of physiological magnitude shrinks the lateral intercellular space between bronchial epithelial cells, but does so with strikingly slow exponential kinetics (time constant approximately 110 s). We confirm that epidermal growth factor (EGF)-family ligands are constitutively shed into the intercellular space and demonstrate that a step increase in compressive stress enhances EGF receptor (EGFR) phosphorylation with magnitude and onset kinetics closely matching those p

SUBMITTER: Kojic N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2879944 | biostudies-literature | 2010 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature