ArticleCurrent biology : CB2016
MRCK-1 Drives Apical Constriction in C. elegans by Linking Developmental Patterning to Force Generation.
Article in Current biology : CB, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers.
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 106 citations in OpenAlex.
- TheMolecular biology of the cell · 2026Article
- Reciprocal E-cadherin signaling aligns apical surfaces between neighboring epithelial tissues to complete the C. elegans digestive tract.Current biology : CB · 2026Article
- WormTagDB: a systematic survey of endogenously tagged proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans and roadmap toward the tagged proteome.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- F-actin organization excludes E-cadherin from the division furrow to ensure cytokinesis fidelity.Life science alliance · 2026Article
- ThebioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- WormTagDB: A Systematic Survey of Endogenously Tagged Proteins inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Repeated extrinsic and anisotropic mechanical inputs promote C. elegans polarized adherens junction elongation.Developmental cell · 2025Article
- Article
- MRCK-1 activates non-muscle myosin for outgrowth of a unicellular tube in Caenorhabditis elegans.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2024Article
- Mechanical regulation of substrate adhesion and de-adhesion drives a cell-contractile wave during Drosophila tissue morphogenesis.Developmental cell · 2024Article
- RhoA GEF Mcf2lb regulates rosette integrity during collective cell migration.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2024Article
- MRCK activates mouse oocyte myosin II for spindle rotation and male pronucleus centration.The Journal of cell biology · 2023Article
- Apical PAR protein caps orient the mitotic spindle in C. elegans early embryos.Current biology : CB · 2023Article
- Persistent cell contacts enable E-cadherin/HMR-1- and PAR-3-based symmetry breaking within a developing C. elegans epithelium.Developmental cell · 2023Article
- Architecture of the cortical actomyosin network driving apical constriction in C. elegans.The Journal of cell biology · 2023Article
- The RhoGEF protein Plekhg5 regulates medioapical and junctional actomyosin dynamics of apical constriction duringMolecular biology of the cell · 2023Article
- A ratchet-like apical constriction drives cell ingression during the mouse gastrulation EMT.eLife · 2023Article
- WAVE facilitates polarized E-cadherin transport.Molecular biology of the cell · 2023Article
- Apical PAR-3 caps orient the mitotic spindle inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- SRGP-1/srGAP and AFD-1/afadin stabilize HMP-1/⍺-catenin at rosettes to seal internalization sites following gastrulation in C. elegans.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Apical constriction is a change in cell shape that drives key morphogenetic events including gastrulation and neural tube formation. Apical force-producing actomyosin networks drive apical constriction by contracting while connected to cell-cell junctions. The mechanisms by which developmental patterning regulates these actomyosin networks and associated junctions with spatial precision are not fully understood. Here we identify a myosin light-chain kinase MRCK-1 as a key regulator of C. elegans gastrulation that integrates spatial and developmental patterning information. We show that MRCK-1 is required for activation of contractile actomyosin dynamics and elevated cortical tension in the apical cell cortex of endoderm precursor cells. MRCK-1 is apically localized by active Cdc42 at the external, cell-cell contact-free surfaces of apically constricting cells, downstream of cell fate determination mechanisms. We establish that the junctional components α-catenin, β-catenin, and cadherin become highly enriched at the apical junctions of apically constricting cells and that MRCK-1 and myosin activity are required in vivo for this enrichment. Taken together, our results define mechanisms that position a myosin activator to a specific cell surface where it both locally increases cortical tension and locally enriches junctional components to facilitate apical constriction. These results reveal crucial links that can tie spatial information to local force generation to drive morphogenesis.
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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.