Cellular responses to tissue mechanical stress

Date

Jun 30, 2022

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Guillaume Charras

Affiliation

London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, UK

Series

MPI-CBG Thursday Seminar

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Host

Byung Ho Lee on behalf of the postdocs

Description

Throughout embryogenesis and in adult physiology, living tissues are continuously exposed to mechanical stress. In development, tissue stress has been shown to act as a signal that orients cell divisions and guides tissue growth. While mitotic spindles have been shown to reorient in response to external mechanical stresses, the subcellular cues that mediate spindle reorientation remain unclear. I will present experiments investigating how mitotic spindles respond to inhomogeneous tension along the surface of the mitotic cell. Rupture is a constant risk for many tissues and it can arise due to excessive stresses or because of tissue weakening by genetic abnormalities or pathologies. Tissue fracture is a multi-scale process involving the unzipping of intercellular adhesions at the molecular scale in response to stresses arising at the tissue-scale or cellular-scale transmitted to adhesion complexes through the cytoskeleton. I will present work characterising tissue fracture and highlight a crucial role for intermediate filaments in protecting tissues against rupture.

Last modified: Jul 1, 2022, 12:07:14 AM