#cell migration

Lead the Follower

Computer modelling collective cell migration – such as occurs in wound healing, embryo development and cancer invasion – reveals the contributions to the speed of migration made by characteristics of the cells of the leader and follower rows

Read the published research article here

Video from work by Tien Comlekoglu and colleagues

Department of Cell Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Biology Open, September 2024

Formin Shapes

The role of proteins called formins – key to the assembly of cells' inner scaffold or cytoskeleton – in the mechanics of migration of highly adherent cells is revealed by inactivating certain formins by CRISPR-Cas9 technology

Read the published research article here

Video from work by Jonas Scholz, Till Stephan, Aina Gallemí and Agnes Csiszár, and colleagues

Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Science Advances, October 2024

Facilitating Migration

A protein called VAPA on the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum – a cell's largest organelle, and where proteins are produced – is vital for cell movement (motility) as it mediates cytoskeleton activity and regulates adhesion to the substrate at a migrating cell's leading edge

Read the published research article here

Video from work by Hugo Siegfried and colleagues

Université Paris Cité, CNRS, Institut Jacques Monod, Paris, France

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife, March 2024

Growing to Order

Cells organise as they migrate or as tissue grows in ways analogous to liquid crystals. This study provides greater understanding of cell organisation taking into account the influence of adhesion between the cells and with their substrate

Read the published research paper here

Image from work by Julia Eckert and colleagues

Physics of Life Processes, Leiden Institute of Physics, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, September 2023

Behind Migration

Details of the dynamics between molecules at the cell membrane involved in cancer-promoting migration signals

Read the published research article here

Image adapted from work by Maitreyi S Joshi and colleagues

Department of Systemic Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology, Dortmund, Germany

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Published in EMBO Reports, March 2023

Interior Design Changes

Mechanisms underlying how the contents of cells deform and organise to change cell shape allowing them to migrate or invade

Read the published research paper here

Image from work by Pedro Monteiro and Bongwhan Yeon, and colleagues

Centre for Cancer Cell and Molecular Biology, Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in The EMBO Journal, July 2023

Cell Block

Cells are often on the move, but how they navigate obstacles is a little mysterious. Here researchers create a sort of assault course for young pre-osteoblasts – cells destined to develop into bone. A microscope zooms down from above capturing the scene after eight days of challenging growth around a hemispherical bump (cells seem to prefer valleys to mountains). But these cells, highlighted in red with DNA in blue, are adapting. They align their stress fibres – stretchy bundles of actin used to change their shape and direction. Researchers believe cells align some of their stress fibres in the direction of movement while others brace across the cell to limit bending. Cells working together means the tissue can reach out between these obstacles, like climbers strung together navigating a mountain pass (although a million times smaller). Such insights may suggest ways to support migrating cells during development, or tissues remodelling after injury.

Written by John Ankers

Video from work by Sebastien J. P. Callens and colleagues

Department of Biomechanical Engineering, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Delft, The Netherlands

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, March 2023

Stopping the Spread

"Your cancer has spread". Words no-one wants to hear. This process of cancer spreading to other parts of the body is called metastasis and accounts for most cancer-related deaths. So understanding how cancer cells break free of a dense tumour and start migrating is a high priority. Researchers have now identified a key culprit in melanoma; the most serious type of skin cancer. Migrating cancer cells were able to move through smaller spaces more easily, compared to ones confined to a tumour, by changing the shape of their nucleus (four pictured). Their nuclei become ‘more fluid’ by forming bulges of different shapes and sizes at the edges. Usually the nucleus is protected by a rigid layer called the nuclear envelope. However, a protein called LAP-1 (highlighted in magenta) helps to loosen that layer in more aggressive cancer cells allowing them to squeeze through smaller gaps enabling invasion and migration.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Image adapted from work by Yaiza Jung-Garcia and colleagues

Organelle Dynamics Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Cell Biology, January 2023