Researchers identify key components of the cellular engine in living cells
Thursday, August 14, 2014 - 07:00
in Biology & Nature
A team of international researchers led by Professor Lim Chwee Teck, Principal Investigator, and Dr Hiroaki Hirata, Research Fellow, at the Mechanobiology Institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS), together with Professor Masahiro Sokabe from Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, has recently discovered that living cell migration is regulated by the engagement of a force transmitter composed of vinculin and talin, two types of cytoskeletal protein. The researchers showed that force-dependent vinculin binding to talin plays a critical role in mechanically connecting the actin cytoskeleton to the extracellular substrate to contribute towards cell migration.