Cell shape and substrate stiffness drive actin-based cell polarity

Mukund Gupta, Bryant L. Doss, Leyla Kocgozlu, Meng Pan, René-Marc Mège, Andrew Callan-Jones, Raphaël Voituriez, and Benoît Ladoux
Phys. Rev. E 99, 012412 – Published 10 January 2019
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Abstract

A general trait of living cells is their ability to exert contractile stresses on their surroundings and thus respond to substrate rigidity. At the cellular scale, this response affects cell shape, polarity, and ultimately migration. The regulation of cell shape together with rigidity sensing remains largely unknown. In this article we show that both substrate rigidity and cell shape contribute to drive actin organization and cell polarity. Increasing substrate rigidity affects bulk properties of the actin cytoskeleton by favoring long-lived actin stress fibers with increased nematic interactions, whereas cell shape imposes a local alignment of actin fibers at the cell periphery.

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  • Received 3 March 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.99.012412

©2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Physics of Living SystemsPolymers & Soft MatterStatistical Physics & Thermodynamics

Authors & Affiliations

Mukund Gupta1,2,*, Bryant L. Doss1, Leyla Kocgozlu1, Meng Pan1, René-Marc Mège2, Andrew Callan-Jones3, Raphaël Voituriez4,5,†, and Benoît Ladoux1,2,‡

  • 1Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore, 117411 Singapore, Singapore
  • 2Institut Jacques Monod, CNRS, UMR No. 7592, Université Paris Diderot, 75013 Paris, France
  • 3Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes, UMR No. 7057 CNRS, Université Paris Diderot, 75013 Paris, France
  • 4Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de la Matière Condensée, CNRS, UPMC, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France
  • 5Laboratoire Jean Perrin, CNRS, UPMC, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France

  • *Present address: Department of Biomedical Engineering and Biological Design Center, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
  • Corresponding author: raphael.voituriez@upmc.fr
  • Corresponding author: benoit.ladoux@ijm.fr

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Issue

Vol. 99, Iss. 1 — January 2019

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