Tension-dependent stabilization of E-cadherin limits cell-cell contact expansion in zebrafish germ-layer progenitor cells.

ABSTRACT: Tension of the actomyosin cell cortex plays a key role in determining cell-cell contact growth and size. The level of cortical tension outside of the cell-cell contact, when pulling at the contact edge, scales with the total size to which a cell-cell contact can grow [J.-L. Maître et al., Science 338, 253-256 (2012)]. Here, we show in zebrafish primary germ-layer progenitor cells that this monotonic relationship only applies to a narrow range of cortical tension increase and that above a critical threshold, contact size inversely scales with cortical tension. This switch from cortical tension increasing to decreasing progenitor cell-cell contact size is caused by cortical tension promoting E-cadherin anchoring to the actomyosin cytoskeleton, thereby increasing clustering and stability of E

SUBMITTER: Slovakova J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8872771 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature