English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

How cells organize into structured tissues has been a long-standing question for the field of developmental biology (1). Whereas many of the key cellular and extracellular regulatory components have become identified over the past decades, including soluble growth factors and insoluble matrix factors in the environment and receptors on the cells themselves, fundamental principles by which molecular regulatory processes govern resulting cell–cell interactions remain largely unclear. More recently, a nascent medical technology field of tissue engineering has arisen that can be viewed essentially as applied developmental biology—with bioengineers seeking to control for their own purposes cell population organization into functional tissue structures, often employing biomaterials approaches (2). Success in this technology field, correspondingly, depends similarly on elucidating how cell organizational processes are governed by interactions of cell receptors with cognate ligands in their surroundings. In this issue of PNAS, a collaborative effort combining biomaterials and molecular cell biology methodologies provides an important advance in both the fields of developmental biology and tissue engineering (3). A phenomenon central to cell organization into tissue structures is cell motility, including active cell locomotion through or over matrices and stress-induced matrix remodeling by cells. Both motility-related processes depend on transmission of intracellular cytoskeleton-generated forces to the surrounding environment, whether adjacent cells, extracellular matrix, or a synthetic material. Force transmission as well as generation are regulated by signaling pathways governed by a variety of environmental stimuli, but in any situation are directly mediated by receptors in the cell plasma membrane that link to the cytoskeleton (see Fig. 1). One important class of these receptors are the integrins, αβ heterodimeric transmembrane proteins that recognize and bind mainly to components of the extracellular matrix (although they can additionally recognize and bind to heterotypic cell counterreceptors in certain cases; ref. 4). A second, similarly important class is …

Who's got pull around here? Cell organization in development and tissue engineering