Regulation of Cell Adhesion and Migration via Microtubule Cytoskeleton Organization, Cell Polarity, and Phosphoinositide Signaling

Abstract

The capacity for cancer cells to metastasize to distant organs depends on their ability to execute the carefully choreographed processes of cell adhesion and migration. As most human cancers are of epithelial origin (carcinoma), the transcriptional downregulation of adherent/tight junction proteins (e.g., E-cadherin, Claudin and Occludin) with the concomitant gain of adhesive and migratory phenotypes has been extensively studied. Most research and reviews on cell adhesion and migration focus on the actin cytoskeleton and its reorganization. However, metastasizing cancer cells undergo the extensive reorganization of their cytoskeletal system, specifically in originating/nucleation sites of microtubules and their orientation (e.g., from non-centrosomal to centrosomal microtubule organizing centers). The precise mechanisms by which the spatial and temporal reorganization of microtubules are linked functionally with the acquisition of an adhesive and migratory phenotype as epithelial cells reversibly transition into mesenchymal cells during metastasis remains poorly understood. In this Special Issue of “Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Cell Adhesion and Migration”, we highlight cell adhesion and migration from the perspectives of microtubule cytoskeletal reorganization, cell polarity and phosphoinositide signaling.

Effects of Different Surface Functionalizations of Silica Nanoparticles on Mesenchymal Stem Cells

“…Although polystyrenesulfonate-modified nanoparticles did not affect the cell proliferation and differentiation capability of MSCs, a study has previously shown that sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate inhibited migration and invasion in human cells . The migration ability declined probably due to altered actin cytoskeleton, cell stiffness, cell adhesion, and cell morphology, as well as the generation of fewer stress fibers and higher aggregate formation that impact the cell motility and traction force. , Nevertheless, the impact of these functionalized silica nanoparticles on the migration ability and cytoskeleton remodeling was subtle.…”

Carrageenan maintains the contractile phenotype of vascular smooth muscle cells by increasing macromolecular crowding in vitro

“…They were fine-tuned to meet the needs of cells and tissues. The ability of microtubules to regulate cell migration through coordinated interactions between polymerization/depolymerization and adhesion patch assembly/disassembly, as well as their ability to regulate Rho-GTPase signaling for actin contractility, suggests that the changes in microtubule motility could account for alterations in the migratory and contractile capacities of cells [ 41 , 42 ]. Clusters 2 and 5 were both biological processes that affected the extracellular space but the focus was different; cluster 2 primarily affected integrin signaling and the differentiation and growth of VSMCs, and cluster 5 focused on extracellular matrix proteins and cytoskeletal processes that regulated cellular behaviors.…”

Systemic migrations in enucleated cells

“…Structural chromatin organization also plays a significant role in cellular migration (Gerlitz, 2020). In addition, numerous biochemical molecules and other physiological processes are involved in the directional movement of cells, including PI3K (Inoue and Meyer, 2008), focal adhesion proteins (Artemenko et al, 2014), actin-binding proteins (Lee and Dominguez, 2010), PLEKHG3 (Nguyen et al, 2016), p21-activated kinases (Kumar et al, 2009), SCAR/WAVE proteins (Pollitt and Insall, 2009), Arp2/3 complexes (Swaney and Li, 2016), mitogen-activated protein kinases (Huang et al, 2004), actin-capping protein (Ogienko et al, 2013), WASP family proteins (Veltman and Insall, 2010), phosphoinositide lipid molecules (Ling et al, 2006; Kakar et al, 2023; Thapa et al, 2023), TORC2/PKB pathway (Cai et al, 2010), and the Nck family of adaptor proteins (Rivera et al, 2006), among others.…”