Tension-dependent stabilization of E-cadherin limits cell–cell contact expansion in zebrafish germ-layer progenitor cells
Jana Slováková, Mateusz Sikora, Feyza Nur Arslan, Silvia Caballero-Mancebo, Gabriel Krens, Walter A. Kaufmann, Jack Merrin, Carl‐Philipp Heisenberg
Abstract
338, 253-256 (2012)]. Here, we show in zebrafish primary germ-layer progenitor cells that this monotonic relationship only applies to a narrow range of cortical tension increase and that above a critical threshold, contact size inversely scales with cortical tension. This switch from cortical tension increasing to decreasing progenitor cell-cell contact size is caused by cortical tension promoting E-cadherin anchoring to the actomyosin cytoskeleton, thereby increasing clustering and stability of E-cadherin at the contact. After tension-mediated E-cadherin stabilization at the contact exceeds a critical threshold level, the rate by which the contact expands in response to pulling forces from the cortex sharply drops, leading to smaller contacts at physiologically relevant timescales of contact formation. Thus, the activity of cortical tension in expanding cell-cell contact size is limited by tension-stabilizing E-cadherin-actin complexes at the contact.