Biological complexity: proteins that maintain cell shape (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, August 26, 2019, 18:25 (1699 days ago) @ David Turell

A group of proteins that anchor cell shape and nucleus position are identified:

https://phys.org/news/2019-08-fundamental-properties-cells-affect-tissue.html

"...Virginia Commonwealth University researchers, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Florida, identify a fundamental factor in maintaining a stable multicellular structure: the LINC complex.

"The LINC complex—a group of proteins known as the nuclear linker of nucleoskeleton to cytoskeleton—anchors the nucleus to the cell. The study, using 3-D culture models of cell clusters known as acini, suggests that mechanically disrupting the LINC complex destabilizes the clusters.

"'If these main connections that help anchor the nucleus are disrupted, the cells try their best to compensate in order to keep things normal," said Vani Narayanan, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the VCU College of Engineering and lead co-author of the study. "Unfortunately, this compensation becomes over-compensation. Various proteins that should ideally remain in nominal amounts within the cell for proper cellular function get unregulated, causing rapid movement of cells within the acinus, abnormal cell division and migration and, hence, the system collapses."

***

"'The mechanics of the cells affect how tissue structures form," said Daniel Conway, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and co-author of the study. "If you change the mechanical properties of individual cells, they lose the ability to form more complex tissue or to stay organized. ... The structures actually aren't that stable, [therefore] disruptions in physical connections between or within cells can result in these structures collapsing.'"

Comment: This shape-holding structure must have been designed as multicellular forms appeared in evolution. Otherwise how did they maintain proper functions?