ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
Molecular clutch drives cell response to surface viscosity.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 71 papers.
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Who cites it
71 citing papers in PubMed, 174 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mechanical regulation of cell memory.Nature structural & molecular biology · 2026Review
- Lipid network crosslinked hydrogels control material dynamics across multiple length scales through lipid movement.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Stable Protein-Based G-Quadruplex-Derived Supramolecular Bioinks as Tunable ECM-Mimetic Constructs Assembled by Combining Non-Covalent and Covalent Strategies.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Traction Force Microscopy for Viscoelastic Substrates: A Semi-Analytical Method.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Leveraging Viscosity to Unlock the Osteogenic Potential of BMP-2 Mimetic DWIVA.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Glassy adhesion dynamics govern transitions between sub-diffusive and super-diffusive cancer cell migration on viscoelastic substrates.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Models of Cellular Mechanosensation.Results and problems in cell differentiation · 2026Review
- At the Pointy End of Mechanobiology: AFM for Transient Biomechanical Analysis.Advanced healthcare materials · 2025Review
- Unlocking the therapeutic potential of cellular mechanobiology.Science advances · 2025Review
- Piezo1 regulates the mechanotransduction of soft matrix viscoelasticity.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- Antigen mobility regulates the dynamics and precision of antigen capture in the B cell immune synapse.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Epithelial Cell Mechanoresponse to Matrix Viscoelasticity and Confinement Within Micropatterned Viscoelastic Hydrogels.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- NaBC1 Boron Transporter Enables Myoblast Response to Substrate Rigidity via Fibronectin-Binding Integrins.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Substrate stress relaxation regulates monolayer fluidity and leader cell formation for collectively migrating epithelia.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Cell adhesion and spreading on fluid membranes through microtubules-dependent mechanotransduction.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Integrin force loading rate in mechanobiology: From model to molecular measurement.QRB discovery · 2025Review
- Physical principles and mechanisms of cell migration.npj biological physics and mechanics · 2025Review
- The role of extracellular matrix viscoelasticity in development and disease.npj biological physics and mechanics · 2025Review
- Analytical methods in studying cell force sensing: principles, current technologies and perspectives.Regenerative biomaterials · 2025Review
11 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cell response to matrix rigidity has been explained by the mechanical properties of the actin-talin-integrin-fibronectin clutch. Here the molecular clutch model is extended to account for cell interactions with purely viscous surfaces (i.e., without an elastic component). Supported lipid bilayers present an idealized and controllable system through which to study this concept. Using lipids of different diffusion coefficients, the mobility (i.e., surface viscosity) of the presented ligands (in this case RGD) was altered by an order of magnitude. Cell size and cytoskeletal organization were proportional to viscosity. Furthermore, there was a higher number of focal adhesions and a higher phosphorylation of FAK on less-mobile (more-viscous) surfaces. Actin retrograde flow, an indicator of the force exerted on surfaces, was also seen to be faster on more mobile surfaces. This has consequential effects on downstream molecules; the mechanosensitive YAP protein localized to the nucleus more on less-mobile (more-viscous) surfaces and differentiation of myoblast cells was enhanced on higher viscosity. This behavior was explained within the framework of the molecular clutch model, with lower viscosity leading to a low force loading rate, preventing the exposure of mechanosensitive proteins, and with a higher viscosity causing a higher force loading rate exposing these sites, activating downstream pathways. Consequently, the understanding of how viscosity (regardless of matrix stiffness) influences cell response adds a further tool to engineer materials that control cell behavior.
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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.