ArticleDevelopment (Cambridge, England)2010
Macroscopic stiffening of embryonic tissues via microtubules, RhoGEF and the assembly of contractile bundles of actomyosin.
Article in Development (Cambridge, England), 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 80 citations in OpenAlex.
- StrainMapperJ: An Easy-to-Use Digital Image Correlation Toolkit for Exploring and Quantifying the Mechanics of Deforming Tissues.Results and problems in cell differentiation · 2026Article
- Shape, Strain, and Stability: Epithelia Under High Strain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- PCP-dependent polarized mechanics in the cortex of individual cells during convergent extension.Developmental biology · 2025Article
- Microtubules Disruption Alters the Cellular Structures and Mechanics Depending on Underlying Chemical Cues.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2025Article
- Differential cellular stiffness across tissues that contribute to Xenopus neural tube closure.Development, growth & differentiation · 2024Article
- Conserved physical mechanisms of cell and tissue elongation.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2024Review
- Adherens junctions as molecular regulators of emergent tissue mechanics.Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology · 2024Review
- Microsurgical Methods to Make the Keller Sandwich Explant and the Dorsal Isolate.Cold Spring Harbor protocols · 2022Article
- Tracking of Endothelial Cell Migration and Stiffness Measurements Reveal the Role of Cytoskeletal Dynamics.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Human mammary epithelial cells in a mature, stratified epithelial layer flatten and stiffen compared to single and confluent cells.Biochimica et biophysica acta. General subjects · 2021Article
- Furry is required for cell movements during gastrulation and functionally interacts with NDR1.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Tissue mechanics drives regeneration of a mucociliated epidermis on the surface of Xenopus embryonic aggregates.Nature communications · 2020Article
- Microtubule disruption changes endothelial cell mechanics and adhesion.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Mechanics of Anteroposterior Axis Formation in Vertebrates.Annual review of cell and developmental biology · 2019Review
- Multiscale analysis of architecture, cell size and the cell cortex reveals cortical F-actin density and composition are major contributors to mechanical properties during convergent extension.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2018Article
- Living tissues are more than cell clusters: The extracellular matrix as a driving force in morphogenesis.Progress in biophysics and molecular biology · 2018Review
- Emergent mechanics of actomyosin drive punctuated contractions and shape network morphology in the cell cortex.PLoS computational biology · 2018Article
- Article
- Functional role for stable microtubules in lens fiber cell elongation.Experimental cell research · 2018Article
- Neurite elongation is highly correlated with bulk forward translocation of microtubules.Scientific reports · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
During morphogenesis, forces generated by cells are coordinated and channeled by the viscoelastic properties of the embryo. Microtubules and F-actin are considered to be two of the most important structural elements within living cells accounting for both force production and mechanical stiffness. In this paper, we investigate the contribution of microtubules to the stiffness of converging and extending dorsal tissues in Xenopus laevis embryos using cell biological, biophysical and embryological techniques. Surprisingly, we discovered that depolymerizing microtubules stiffens embryonic tissues by three- to fourfold. We attribute tissue stiffening to Xlfc, a previously identified RhoGEF, which binds microtubules and regulates the actomyosin cytoskeleton. Combining drug treatments and Xlfc activation and knockdown lead us to the conclusion that mechanical properties of tissues such as viscoelasticity can be regulated through RhoGTPase pathways and rule out a direct contribution of microtubules to tissue stiffness in the frog embryo. We can rescue nocodazole-induced stiffening with drugs that reduce actomyosin contractility and can partially rescue morphogenetic defects that affect stiffened embryos. We support these conclusions with a multi-scale analysis of cytoskeletal dynamics, tissue-scale traction and measurements of tissue stiffness to separate the role of microtubules from RhoGEF activation. These findings suggest a re-evaluation of the effects of nocodazole and increased focus on the role of Rho family GTPases as regulators of the mechanical properties of cells and their mechanical interactions with surrounding tissues.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.