Extracellular matrix articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The developmental fate of cells is regulated by the delicate environment created by the extracellular matrix. Here, authors investigate the impact of the full complement of conserved matrisome genes in germ cell development and gamete health in C. elegans.

    • Aqilah Amran
    • , Lara Pigatto
    •  & Sandeep Gopal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis has been associated with aberrant expansion of KRT5-expressing basal cells. Here the authors show how changes in the ECM glycoprotein SPARC restrict the movement of KRT5+ cells, affecting their retention within fibrotic tissue.

    • Richard J. Hewitt
    • , Franz Puttur
    •  & Clare M. Lloyd

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tissue morphogenesis is a complex process that involves tissue growth, mechanics, and shape changes. This work demonstrates that differences in growth rate and direction between a tissue layer and its associated extracellular matrix drive 3D shape changes during organ growth.

    • Stefan Harmansa
    • , Alexander Erlich
    •  & Thomas Lecuit

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecular level control is required to capture the folding and supramolecular assembly of collagen in mimetic materials. Here, the authors report on the creation of a synthetic collagen which assembles into banded fibers, recaptures structural properties of natural collagen and which can act as a testbed for design and experimentation

    • Jinyuan Hu
    • , Junhui Li
    •  & Fei Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Adipose tissue fibrosis is connected to obesity-related metabolic dysfunction. Qiu and colleagues discover that the Hippo pathway acts as a molecular switch in the initiation and development of adipose tissue fibrosis upon TGFβ stimulation.

    • Hongyu Shen
    • , Xun Huang
    •  & Yifu Qiu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The functional role of airway basal cells has not been comprehensively studied in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Here, the authors show that airway basal cells of IPF patients display a distinct phenotype, are profibrotic if transplanted to mice and that fibrosis can be ameliorated by Src iinhibitors.

    • Benedikt Jaeger
    • , Jonas Christian Schupp
    •  & Antje Prasse

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Matriglycan, a repeating disaccharide on α-dystroglycan, is the receptor for Lassa virus and specific extracellular matrix proteins. Here, the authors demonstrate that matriglycan, in a length-dependent tunable manner, is both necessary and sufficient for protein binding and viral infection.

    • M. Osman Sheikh
    • , Chantelle J. Capicciotti
    •  & Geert-Jan Boons

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasmodium gametes and sporozoites activate surface-bound plasminogen to plasmin that degrades extracellular matrix barriers, therewith facilitating parasite motility in mosquitoes and mammalian hosts. To control malaria transmission, Pascini et al. generate Anopheles stephensi transgenic mosquitoes constitutively secreting human plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 in midgut and/or saliva which leads to inhibition of plasminogen activation and a reduction in oocyst intensity, infection prevalence, and transmission.

    • Tales V. Pascini
    • , Yeong Je Jeong
    •  & Joel Vega-Rodríguez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Basal progenitors are enriched in gyrencephalic species like humans contributing to neuronal expansion. Here the authors show that LGALS3BP de novo variants are related to reduced cortical complexity and area in humans and that LGALS3BP regulates neural progenitor position in organoids, human fetal tissue and mice.

    • Christina Kyrousi
    • , Adam C. O’Neill
    •  & Silvia Cappello

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organoid cultures have been developed from multiple tissues, opening new possibilities for regenerative medicine. Here the authors demonstrate the derivation of GMP-compliant hydrogels from decellularized porcine small intestine which support formation and growth of human gastric, liver, pancreatic and small intestinal organoids.

    • Giovanni Giuseppe Giobbe
    • , Claire Crowley
    •  & Paolo De Coppi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Migrating cells tune their energy utilization in response to their microenvironment, but how cellular energetics direct navigation remains unclear. Here, the authors report that energetic costs for motility, regulated by cell mechanics and confinement, predict the probability of migration choice.

    • Matthew R. Zanotelli
    • , Aniqua Rahman-Zaman
    •  & Cynthia A. Reinhart-King

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How cells migrate in fibrous tissues is still poorly understood. Here, with synthetic 3D fibre matrices of controlled alignment and stiffness, the authors report that cells in stiff matrices move slowly and continuously, but in softer, deformable matrices cells can rapidly slingshot forward via stretch and recoil of matrix fibres.

    • William Y. Wang
    • , Christopher D. Davidson
    •  & Brendon M. Baker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechano-properties of the Extracellular Matrix (ECM) are important for tumorigenesis. Here, the authors show that the stiffening of the ECM promotes translocation of the focal adhesion protein—Kindlin-2—to the mitochondria, where it interacts with the proline synthesis enzyme PYCR1, stimulating proline synthesis and cell proliferation.

    • Ling Guo
    • , Chunhong Cui
    •  & Chuanyue Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) are characterized by extensive extracellular matrix degradation. Here Hadi et al. identify a netrin-1/neogenin-based crosstalk between macrophages and vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), leading to the secretion of the matrix metalloproteinase MMP-3 by VSMCs and subsequent matrix degradation in AAA lesions.

    • Tarik Hadi
    • , Ludovic Boytard
    •  & Bhama Ramkhelawon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Abnormal alveolar development and homeostasis are common features of pulmonary disease. Here the authors show that Myh10 expression is reduced in emphysema patients, and that Myh10 loss of function impairs alveolar formation and lung morphogenesis via upregulation of matrix metalloproteinase activity and altered matrix remodeling.

    • Hyun-Taek Kim
    • , Wenguang Yin
    •  & Didier Y. R. Stainier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laminins are important regulators of epidermal wound healing. Here, the authors show that laminins bind to multiple growth factors via their heparin-binding domains, and that incorporation of these domains into fibrin matrices increases growth factor retention, promoting wound healing in type 2 diabetic mouse models.

    • Jun Ishihara
    • , Ako Ishihara
    •  & Jeffrey A. Hubbell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Endothelial cells release extracellular matrix components that regulate inflammation. Here the authors demonstrate that the extracellular matrix component epidermal growth factor-like protein 7 regulates inflammation in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in the mouse.

    • Catherine Larochelle
    • , Timo Uphaus
    •  & Frauke Zipp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Purely elastic biomimetic soft materials are used to characterize the mechanical response of cells, but do not resemble real tissues. Here the authors develop a viscoelastic solid hydrogel, based on polyacrylamide, that can be tuned to closely resemble soft tissue, and show the influence of viscous dissipation on cellular mechanical sensing.

    • Elisabeth E. Charrier
    • , Katarzyna Pogoda
    •  & Paul A. Janmey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Blood clot contraction is a cellular (patho)physiological process essential for wound healing, hemostasis, and thrombosis. Here, the authors describe the physical structural mechanism by which platelet filopodia pull “hand-over-hand” on fibrin fibers to compact them into bundled agglomerates.

    • Oleg V. Kim
    • , Rustem I. Litvinov
    •  & John W. Weisel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fabrication of vascularized 3D tissues requires an understanding of how material properties govern endothelial cell invasion into the surrounding matrix. Here the authors integrate a non-swelling synthetic hydrogel with a microfluidic device to study chemokine gradient-driven angiogenic sprouting and find that matrix degradability modulates the collectivity of cell migration.

    • Britta Trappmann
    • , Brendon M. Baker
    •  & Christopher S. Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cells in the connective tissue are surrounded by a heterogeneous network of biopolymers. Here, the authors investigate how such heterogeneity affects cellular mechanosensing by simulating the deformation response of experimental and modelled biopolymer networks to locally applied forces.

    • Farzan Beroz
    • , Louise M. Jawerth
    •  & Ned S. Wingreen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hyaline fibromatosis syndrome (HFS) is a hereditary disease characterized by nodular cutaneous lesions and joint pain. Here Bürgiet al. show that CMG2/ANTXR2 regulates collagen VI abundance, with loss-of-function mutations promoting collagen VI accumulation in HFS nodules and myometrial collagen deposition and sterility in mice, which can be rescued by depleting collagen VI.

    • Jérôme Bürgi
    • , Béatrice Kunz
    •  & F. Gisou van der Goot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cell migration is sensitive to environmental stiffness, but how cells sense optimal stiffness is not known. Here the authors develop a model that predicts that the optimum can be shifted by altering the number of active molecular motors and clutches, and verify their model in two cell types.

    • Benjamin L. Bangasser
    • , Ghaidan A. Shamsan
    •  & David J. Odde

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Establishment of the outer blood-retina barrier is a hallmark of retinal development but the contribution of choroid endothelial cells (ECs) is not known. Here the authors show in the developing mouse retina that ECs remodel the basement membrane and lead to enhanced barrier function of retinal epithelial cells.

    • Ignacio Benedicto
    • , Guillermo L. Lehmann
    •  & Enrique Rodriguez-Boulan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interaction of fibronectin with αv-class and α5β1 integrins results in formation of cell adhesion complexes, but the initial events (<120 s) remain unclear. Here, the authors show that αv-class integrins bind fibronectin faster than α5β1 integrins and subsequently signal to α5ß1 integrins to strengthen the adhesion.

    • Mitasha Bharadwaj
    • , Nico Strohmeyer
    •  & Daniel J. Müller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tumour microenvironment influences the migration of cancer cells. Here the authors analyse the proteomic constitution of the extracellular matrix and identify a role for fibronectin in regulating the collective migration of squamous cell carcinoma cells.

    • Sandeep Gopal
    • , Laurence Veracini
    •  & Ellen Van Obberghen-Schilling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Planar in vitromodels for wound closure stress the role of lamellipodial protrusions and purse-string contraction. Here the authors develop a 3D biomimetic model for tissue repair and show a mode of stromal closure that relies on whole tissue deformations, cell migration and matrix deposition.

    • Mahmut Selman Sakar
    • , Jeroen Eyckmans
    •  & Christopher S. Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multiple extracellular matrix parameters influence cellular behaviour, but it is difficult to dissect their cooperative contributions. Here the authors describe a hydrogel system in which ligand density and substrate stiffness can be tuned orthogonally to study the contribution of combinations of these parameters simultaneously.

    • Andrew D. Rape
    • , Mikhail Zibinsky
    •  & Sanjay Kumar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Assembly of a collagen extracellular matrix requires the presence of fibronectin, but the mechanisms that direct this assembly are not known. Here the authors show that collagen I uses relaxed fibronectin fibrils as a template for assembly, and in turn shield fibronectin fibrils from force-mediated stretching.

    • Kristopher E. Kubow
    • , Radmila Vukmirovic
    •  & Viola Vogel

  • Article |

    Adherent cells actively probe the rigidity of their substrates. Guptaet al. show that actin cytoskeleton rheology transitions from fluid to solid with increased substrate stiffness along with an isotropic to nematic ordering, implicating the remodelling of the whole actin network in rigidity sensing.

    • Mukund Gupta
    • , Bibhu Ranjan Sarangi
    •  & Benoît Ladoux

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