The way in which cells coordinate their behaviours during various biological processes,
including morphogenesis, cancer progression and tissue remodelling, largely depends on …

Vinculin was identified as a component of focal adhesions and adherens junctions nearly 40
years ago. Since that time, remarkable progress has been made in understanding its …

The early development of many organisms involves the folding of cell monolayers, but this
behaviour is difficult to reproduce in vitro; therefore, both mechanistic causes and effects of …

Over a century of scientific inquiry since the discovery of v-SRC but still no final judgement
on SRC function. However, a significant body of work has defined Src family kinases as key …

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) promote tumour invasion and metastasis. We show
that CAFs exert a physical force on cancer cells that enables their collective invasion. Force …

INTRODUCTION Cadherins are an ancient class of transmembrane proteins that are
essential for the formation of multicellular tissues in metazoans. Cadherins link intercellular …

During epithelial morphogenesis, E-cadherin adhesive junctions play an important part in
mechanically coupling the contractile cortices of cells together, thereby distributing the …

Force sensing at cadherin-mediated adhesions is critical for their proper function. α-Catenin,
which links cadherins to actomyosin, has a crucial role in this mechanosensing process. It …

Mechanosensing describes the ability of a cell to sense mechanical cues of its
microenvironment, including not only all components of force, stress, and strain but also …

Cadherins are the principal adhesion proteins at intercellular junctions and function as the
biochemical Velcro that binds cells together. Besides this mechanical function, cadherin …