Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting | Singapore

Mechanobiology of Disease

Tuesday Speaker Abstracts

Rigidity Sensing Contractions Inhibit Transformed Growth Michael P. Sheetz 1,2 Bo Yang 1 , Haguy Wolfenson 2 , Zi Zhao Lieu 1 , Feroz M.Hameed 1 , Alexander D. Bershadsky 1 1 Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 2 Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, NY, USA Matrix rigidity is an important physical aspect of cell microenvironments; however, the mechanism by which cells test substrate rigidity is not clear. Submicron pillar studies indicate that cells sense rigidity by measuring the forces required for local standard contractions at the cell periphery (pinching activity) (Ghassemi et al., 2012. PNAS 109:5328). Recent observations show that sarcomere-like units drive step-wise contractions that depend upon tropomyosin to sense rigidity and block growth on soft surfaces (Wolfenson et al., 2016. Nat. Cell Bio. 18:33). In addition, two tyrosine kinases involved in cancer progression are part of the contractile units and control distance and time of contractions to modify rigidity sensing (Yang et al., 2016. Nanoletters. In Press). Thus, we suggest that these tyrosine kinases affect adhesion-dependent mechanosensitivity and consequently metastasis and morphology changes in development through their regulation of local mechanosensory contractions by sarcomere-like units with tropomyosin.

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