Session Z2: Invited Session: Active Responses of Biological Materials to Mechanical Stress

Force Transmission in the Actin Cytoskeleton

The ability of cells to sense and generate mechanical forces is essential to numerous aspects of their physiology, including adhesion, migration, division and differentiation. To a large degree, cellular tension is regulated by the transmission of myosin II-generated forces through the filamentous actin (F-actin) cytoskeleton. While transmission of myosin-generated stresses from the molecular to cellular length scale is well understood in the context of highly organized sarcomeres found in striated muscle, non-muscle and smooth muscle cells contain a wide variety of bundles and networks lacking sarcomeric organization. I will describe the \textit{in vitro} and \textit{in vivo} approaches we use to study force transmission in such disordered actomyosin assemblies. Our \textit{in vivo} results are showing that highly organized stress fibers contribute surprisingly little to the overall extent of cellular tension as compared to disordered actomyosin meshworks. Our in vitro results are demonstrating the mechanisms of symmetry breaking in disordered actomyosin bundles that facilitate the formation of contractile bundles with well-defined ``contractile elements.'' These results provide insight into the self-organization of actomyosin cytoskeleton in non-muscle cells that regulate and maintain cellular tension.   

Environmental properties set cell mechanics and morphology

Many cell types are sensitive to mechanical signals that are produced either by application of exogenous force to their surfaces, or by the resistance that their surroundings place on forces generated by the cells themselves. Cell morphology, motility, proliferation, and protein expression all change in response to substrate stiffness. Changing the elastic moduli of substrates alters the formation of focal adhesions, the assembly of actin filaments into bundles, and the stability of intermediate filaments. The range of stiffness over which different primary cell types respond can vary over a wide range and generally reflects the elastic modulus of the tissue from which these cells were isolated. Mechanosensing depends on the type of adhesion receptor by which the cell binds, and therefore on both the molecular composition of the extracellular matrix and the nature of its link to the cytoskeleton. Many cell types can alter their own stiffness to match that of the substrate to which they adhere. The maximal elastic modulus that cells such as fibroblasts can attain is similar to that of crosslinked actin networks at the concentrations in the cell cortex. The precise mechanisms of mechanosensing are not well defined, but they presumably require an elastic connection between cell and substrate, mediated by transmembrane proteins. The viscoelastic properties of different extracellular matrices and cytoskeletal elements strongly influence the response of cells to mechanical signals, and the unusual non-linear elasticity of many biopolymer gels, characterized by strain-stiffening, leads to novel mechanisms by which cells alter their stiffness by engagement of molecular motors that produce internal stresses. Cell cortical elasticity is dominated by cytoskeletal polymer networks and can be modulated by internal tension. Simultaneous control of substrate stiffness and adhesive patterns suggests that stiffness sensing occurs on a length scale much larger than single molecular linkages and that the time needed for mechanosensing is on the order of a few seconds.   

Molecular Mechanotransduction: how forces trigger cytoskeletal dynamics

Mechanical stresses elicit cellular reactions mediated by chemical signals. Defective responses to forces underlie human medical disorders, such as cardiac failure and pulmonary injury. Despite detailed knowledge of the cytoskeleton's structure, the specific molecular switches that convert mechanical stimuli into chemical signals have remained elusive. Here we identify the actin-binding protein, filamin A (FLNa) as a central mechanotransduction element of the cytoskeleton by using Fluorescence Loss After photoConversion (FLAC), a novel high-speed alternative to FRAP. We reconstituted a minimal system consisting of actin filaments, FLNa and two FLNa-binding partners: the cytoplasmic tail of {\ss}-integrin, and FilGAP. Integrins form an essential mechanical linkage between extracellular and intracellular environments, with {\ss} integrin tails connecting to the actin cytoskeleton by binding directly to filamin. FilGAP is a FLNa-binding GTPase-activating protein specific for Rac, which in vivo regulates cell spreading and bleb formation. We demonstrate that both externally-imposed bulk shear and myosin II driven forces differentially regulate the binding of integrin and FilGAP to FLNa. Consistent with structural predictions, strain increases {\ss}-integrin binding to FLNa, whereas it causes FilGAP to dissociate from FLNa, providing a direct and specific molecular basis for cellular mechanotransduction. These results identify the first molecular mechanotransduction element within the actin cytoskeleton, revealing that mechanical strain of key proteins regulates the binding of signaling molecules. Moreover, GAP activity has been shown to switch cell movement from mesenchymal to amoeboid motility, suggesting that mechanical forces directly impact the invasiveness of cancer.