Cooperative cell motility during tandem locomotion of amoeboid cells

Emergence of multiple collective motility modes in a physical model of cell chains

Collective cell migration is central to processes like development and cancer metastasis. While mechanisms of collective motility are increasingly understood, their classification remains incomplete. Here, we study the migration of small cell chains, namely cohesive pairs. Experiments with Dictyostelium discoideum (Dd) revealed two motility modes: the individual contributor (IC) mode, where each cell generates its own traction dipole, and the supracellular (S) mode, characterized by a single dipole. Dd pairs favored the IC mode, while Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) doublets predominantly used the S mode. A 2D biophysical model recapitulated many experimental observations; the IC mode emerged naturally in ameboid Dd doublets when both cells exerted similar traction stresses, while the S mode dominated with stronger leaders. Contrary to amebas, MDCK-like cell chains showed a bias towards the IC mode when increasing cell-cell adhesion. Extending the model to longer chains, we show its potential for understanding emergent migration patterns across cell types and scales.

Collective mechanics of small migrating cell groups

Migration of adhesive cell groups is a fundamental part of wound healing, development and carcinogenesis. Intense research has been conducted on mechanisms of collective migration of adhesive groups of cells. Here we focus on mechanical and mechanistic lessons from small migrating cell groups. We review forces and locomotory dynamics of two- and three-cell clusters, rotation of cell doublets, self-organization of one-dimensional cell trains, nascent efforts to understand three-dimensional collective migration and border cell clusters in Drosophila embryo.

The lectin Discoidin I acts in the cytoplasm to help assemble the contractile machinery

Cellular functions, such as division and migration, require cells to undergo robust shape changes. Through their contractility machinery, cells also sense, respond, and adapt to their physical surroundings. In the cytoplasm, the contractility machinery organizes into higher order assemblies termed contractility kits (CKs). Using Dictyostelium discoideum, we previously identified Discoidin I (DscI), a classic secreted lectin, as a CK component through its physical interactions with the actin crosslinker Cortexillin I (CortI) and the scaffolding protein IQGAP2. Here, we find that DscI ensures robust cytokinesis through regulating intracellular components of the contractile machinery. Specifically, DscI is necessary for normal cytokinesis, cortical tension, membrane-cortex connections, and cortical distribution and mechanoresponsiveness of CortI. The dscI deletion mutants also have complex genetic epistatic relationships with CK components, acting as a genetic suppressor of cortI and iqgap1, but as an enhancer of iqgap2. This work underscores the fact that proteins like DiscI contribute in diverse ways to the activities necessary for optimal cell function.

Mfsd8 Modulates Growth and the Early Stages of Multicellular Development in Dictyostelium discoideum

MFSD8 is a transmembrane protein that has been reported to transport chloride ions across the lysosomal membrane. Mutations in MFSD8 are associated with a subtype of Batten disease called CLN7 disease. Batten disease encompasses a family of 13 inherited neurodegenerative lysosomal storage diseases collectively referred to as the neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCLs). Previous work identified an ortholog of human MFSD8 in the social amoeba D. discoideum (gene: mfsd8, protein: Mfsd8), reported its localization to endocytic compartments, and demonstrated its involvement in protein secretion. In this study, we further characterized the effects of mfsd8 loss during D. discoideum growth and early stages of multicellular development. During growth, mfsd8⁻ cells displayed increased rates of proliferation, pinocytosis, and expansion on bacterial lawns. Loss of mfsd8 also increased cell size, inhibited cytokinesis, affected the intracellular and extracellular levels of the quorum-sensing protein autocrine proliferation repressor A, and altered lysosomal enzyme activity. During the early stages of development, loss of mfsd8 delayed aggregation, which we determined was at least partly due to impaired cell-substrate adhesion, defects in protein secretion, and alterations in lysosomal enzyme activity. Overall, these results show that Mfsd8 plays an important role in modulating a variety of processes during the growth and early development of D. discoideum.

F-Type Lectins: Structure, Function, and Evolution

F-type lectins (FTLs) are characterized by a fucose recognition domain (F-type lectin domain; FTLD) that displays a novel jellyroll fold ("F-type" fold) and unique carbohydrate- and calcium-binding sequence motifs. This novel lectin family comprises widely distributed proteins exhibiting single, double, or greater multiples of the FTLD, either tandemly arrayed or combined with other structurally and functionally distinct domains. Further, differences in carbohydrate specificity among tandemly arrayed FTLDs present in any FTL polypeptide subunit, together with the expression of multiple FTL isoforms in a single individual supports a striking diversity in ligand recognition. Functions of FTLs in self/nonself recognition include innate immunity, fertilization, microbial adhesion, and pathogenesis, among others, revealing an extensive structural/functional diversification. The taxonomic distribution of FTLDs is surprisingly discontinuous, suggesting that this lectin family has been subject to secondary loss, lateral transfer, and functional co-option along evolutionary lineages.

Measuring mechanical stress in living tissues

Living tissues are active multifunctional materials capable of generating, sensing, withstanding and responding to mechanical stress. These capabilities enable tissues to adopt complex shapes during development, to sustain those shapes during homeostasis, and to restore them during healing and regeneration. Abnormal stress is associated with a broad range of pathologies, including developmental defects, inflammatory diseases, tumor growth and metastasis. Here we review techniques that measure mechanical stress in living tissues with cellular and subcellular resolution. We begin with 2D techniques to map stress in cultured cell monolayers, which provide the highest resolution and accessibility. These techniques include 2D traction microscopy, micro-pillar arrays, monolayer stress microscopy, and monolayer stretching between flexible cantilevers. We next focus on 3D traction microscopy and the micro-bulge test, which enable mapping forces in tissues cultured in 3D. Finally, we review techniques to measure stress in vivo, including servo-null methods for measuring luminal pressure, deformable inclusions, FRET sensors, laser ablation and computational methods for force inference. Whereas these techniques remain far from becoming everyday tools in biomedical laboratories, their rapid development is fostering key advances in the way we understand the role of mechanics in morphogenesis, homeostasis and disease.

Phosphodiesterase PdeD, dynacortin, and a Kelch repeat-containing protein are direct GSK3 substrates in Dictyostelium that contribute to chemotaxis towards cAMP

The migration of cells according to a diffusible chemical signal in their environment is called chemotaxis, and the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum is widely used for the study of eukaryotic chemotaxis. Dictyostelium must sense chemicals, such as cAMP, secreted during starvation to move towards the sources of the signal. Previous work demonstrated that the gskA gene encodes the Dictyostelium homologue of glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3), a highly conserved serine/threonine kinase, which plays a major role in the regulation of Dictyostelium chemotaxis. Cells lacking the GskA substrates Daydreamer and GflB exhibited chemotaxis defects less severe than those exhibited by gskA^- (GskA null) cells, suggesting that additional GskA substrates might be involved in chemotaxis. Using phosphoproteomics we identify the GskA substrates PdeD, dynacortin and SogA and characterize the phenotypes of their respective null cells in response to the chemoattractant cAMP. All three chemotaxis phenotypes are defective, and in addition, we determine that carboxylesterase D2 is a common downstream effector of GskA, its direct substrates PdeD, GflB and the kinases GlkA and YakA, and that it also contributes to cell migration. Our findings identify new GskA substrates in cAMP signalling and break down the essential role of GskA in myosin II regulation.

Three-Dimensional Monolayer Stress Microscopy

Many biological processes involve the collective generation and transmission of mechanical stresses across cell monolayers. In these processes, the monolayer undergoes lateral deformation and bending because of the tangential and normal components of the cell-generated stresses. Monolayer stress microscopy (MSM) methods have been developed to measure the intracellular stress distribution in cell monolayers. However, current methods assume plane monolayer geometry and neglect the contribution of bending to the intracellular stresses. This work introduces a three-dimensional (3D) MSM method that calculates monolayer stress from measurements of the 3D traction stresses exerted by the cells on a flexible substrate. The calculation is carried out by imposing equilibrium of forces and moments in the monolayer, subject to external loads given by the 3D traction stresses. The equilibrium equations are solved numerically, and the algorithm is validated for synthetic loads with known analytical solutions. We present 3D-MSM measurements of monolayer stress in micropatterned islands of endothelial cells of different sizes and shapes. These data indicate that intracellular stresses caused by lateral deformation emerge collectively over long distances; they increase with the distance from the island edge until they reach a constant value that is independent of island size. On the other hand, bending-induced intracellular stresses are more concentrated spatially and remain confined to within one to two cell lengths of bending sites. The magnitude of these bending stresses is highest at the edges of the cell islands, where they can exceed the intracellular stresses caused by lateral deformations. Our data from nonpatterned monolayers suggests that biomechanical perturbations far away from monolayer edges also cause significant localized alterations in bending tension. The localized effect of bending-induced stresses may be important in processes like cellular extravasation, which are accompanied by significant normal deflections of a cell monolayer (i.e., the endothelium) and require localized changes in monolayer permeability.

F-Type Lectins: A Highly Diversified Family of Fucose-Binding Proteins with a Unique Sequence Motif and Structural Fold, Involved in Self/Non-Self-Recognition

The F-type lectin (FTL) family is one of the most recent to be identified and structurally characterized. Members of the FTL family are characterized by a fucose recognition domain [F-type lectin domain (FTLD)] that displays a novel jellyroll fold ("F-type" fold) and unique carbohydrate- and calcium-binding sequence motifs. This novel lectin family comprises widely distributed proteins exhibiting single, double, or greater multiples of the FTLD, either tandemly arrayed or combined with other structurally and functionally distinct domains, yielding lectin subunits of pleiotropic properties even within a single species. Furthermore, the extraordinary variability of FTL sequences (isoforms) that are expressed in a single individual has revealed genetic mechanisms of diversification in ligand recognition that are unique to FTLs. Functions of FTLs in self/non-self-recognition include innate immunity, fertilization, microbial adhesion, and pathogenesis, among others. In addition, although the F-type fold is distinctive for FTLs, a structure-based search revealed apparently unrelated proteins with minor sequence similarity to FTLs that displayed the FTLD fold. In general, the phylogenetic analysis of FTLD sequences from viruses to mammals reveals clades that are consistent with the currently accepted taxonomy of extant species. However, the surprisingly discontinuous distribution of FTLDs within each taxonomic category suggests not only an extensive structural/functional diversification of the FTLs along evolutionary lineages but also that this intriguing lectin family has been subject to frequent gene duplication, secondary loss, lateral transfer, and functional co-option.

Two-Layer Elastographic 3-D Traction Force Microscopy

Cellular traction force microscopy (TFM) requires knowledge of the mechanical properties of the substratum where the cells adhere to calculate cell-generated forces from measurements of substratum deformation. Polymer-based hydrogels are broadly used for TFM due to their linearly elastic behavior in the range of measured deformations. However, the calculated stresses, particularly their spatial patterns, can be highly sensitive to the substratum's Poisson's ratio. We present two-layer elastographic TFM (2LETFM), a method that allows for simultaneously measuring the Poisson's ratio of the substratum while also determining the cell-generated forces. The new method exploits the analytical solution of the elastostatic equation and deformation measurements from two layers of the substratum. We perform an in silico analysis of 2LETFM concluding that this technique is robust with respect to TFM experimental parameters, and remains accurate even for noisy measurement data. We also provide experimental proof of principle of 2LETFM by simultaneously measuring the stresses exerted by migrating Physarum amoeboae on the surface of polyacrylamide substrata, and the Poisson's ratio of the substrata. The 2LETFM method could be generalized to concurrently determine the mechanical properties and cell-generated forces in more physiologically relevant extracellular environments, opening new possibilities to study cell-matrix interactions.

Loss of Gα12/13 exacerbates apical area dependence of actomyosin contractility

Gα_12/13 loss causes cells with a larger apical area to constrict later than smaller cells, leading to uncoordinated constriction. Apical area influences actin density, myosin regulation, and E-cadherin levels. Thus Gα_12/13 is crucial for the robust initiation of contraction in a tissue in which cells initially have heterogeneous apical areas.

During development, coordinated cell shape changes alter tissue shape. In the Drosophila ventral furrow and other epithelia, apical constriction of hundreds of epithelial cells folds the tissue. Genes in the G_α12/13 pathway coordinate collective apical constriction, but the mechanism of coordination is poorly understood. Coupling live-cell imaging with a computational approach to identify contractile events, we discovered that differences in constriction behavior are biased by initial cell shape. Disrupting G_α12/13 exacerbates this relationship. Larger apical area is associated with delayed initiation of contractile pulses, lower apical E-cadherin and F-actin levels, and aberrantly mobile Rho-kinase structures. Our results suggest that loss of G_α12/13 disrupts apical actin cortex organization and pulse initiation in a size-dependent manner. We propose that G_α12/13 robustly organizes the apical cortex despite variation in apical area to ensure the timely initiation of contractile pulses in a tissue with heterogeneity in starting cell shape.