BBB seminar: Christoph Ballestrem
The story of how vinculin controls cell adhesion
Hovedinnhold
Christoph Ballestrem
Welcome Trust Centre for Cell Matrix Research Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, UK
For coordinated cell migration, cells need to form and disassemble cell-matrix adhesions (focal adhesions) where integrins are connected to the actin cytoskeleton. The link between integrins and the actin cytoskeleton is regulated by a network of signalling proteins comprising over 100 molecules. However, it is unclear how this network of molecules regulates cell-matrix assembly and disassembly. Vinculin is a multi-domain focal adhesion component, which with its large number of potential binding partners has the ability to interconnect signals in focal adhesion. Despite the well-characterised structure of vinculin, the molecular mechanisms underlying its action in cells have remained unclear. In my talk I will present how we elucidated the role of vinculin in the regulation of cell-matrix interactions.
Host: Alexandre Micoulet <micoulet@biomed.uib.no>, Department of Biomedicine