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MINI REVIEW article

Front. Cell Dev. Biol.
Sec. Cell Adhesion and Migration
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcell.2024.1444827
This article is part of the Research Topic Editors' Showcase 2023: Insights in Cell Adhesion and Migration View all 7 articles

From Stress Fiber to Focal Adhesion: A Role of Actin Crosslinkers in Force Transmission

Provisionally accepted
Hiroki Katsuta Hiroki Katsuta 1Masahiro Sokabe Masahiro Sokabe 2Hiroaki Hirata Hiroaki Hirata 3*
  • 1 Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Okayama, Okayama, Japan
  • 2 Human Information Systems Laboratories, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Nonoichi, Ishikawa, Japan
  • 3 Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Nonoichi, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The contractile apparatus, stress fiber (SF), is connected to the cell adhesion machinery, focal adhesion (FA), at the termini of SF. The SF-FA complex is essential for various mechanical activities of cells, including cell adhesion to the extracellular matrix (ECM), ECM rigidity sensing, and cell migration. This mini-review highlights the importance of SF mechanics in these cellular activities. Actin-crosslinking proteins solidify SFs by attenuating myosin-driven flows of actin and myosin filaments within the SF. In the solidified SFs, viscous slippage between actin filaments in SFs and between the filaments and the surrounding cytosol is reduced, leading to efficient transmission of myosin-generated contractile force along the SFs. Hence, SF solidification via actin crosslinking ensures exertion of a large force to FAs, enabling FA maturation, ECM rigidity sensing and cell migration. We further discuss intracellular mechanisms for tuning crosslinker-modulated SF mechanics and the potential relationship between the aberrance of SF mechanics and pathology including cancer.

    Keywords: Stress fiber, focal adhesion, viscoelasticity, crosslinking protein, Rigidity sensing, Extracellular Matrix, cell migration, Mechanotransduction

    Received: 06 Jun 2024; Accepted: 01 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Katsuta, Sokabe and Hirata. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Hiroaki Hirata, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Nonoichi, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.