1. The glycocalyx affects the mechanotransductive perception of the topographical microenvironment
- Author
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Stefania Marcotti, Mirko D’Urso, Carsten Schulte, Claudia Folliero, Cristina Lenardi, Tania Dini, Brian Stramer, Alessandro Podestà, Claudio Piazzoni, Paolo Milani, Francesca Borghi, Matteo Chighizola, Anita Previdi, and Laura Ceriani
- Subjects
0303 health sciences ,Materials science ,02 engineering and technology ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,Glycocalyx ,Extracellular matrix ,Cellular mechanism ,03 medical and health sciences ,Biophysics ,Nanotopography ,Mechanotransduction ,0210 nano-technology ,Nanoscopic scale ,030304 developmental biology - Abstract
The cell/microenvironment interface is the starting point of integrin-mediated mechanotransduction, but many details of mechanotransductive signal integration remain elusive due to the complexity of the involved (extra)cellular structures, such as the glycocalyx.We used nano-bio-interfaces reproducing the complex nanotopographical features of the extracellular matrix to analyse the glycocalyx impact on PC12 cell mechanosensing at the nanoscale (e.g., by force spectroscopy with functionalised probes). Our data demonstrates that the glycocalyx configuration affects spatio-temporal nanotopography-sensitive mechanotransductive events at the cell/microenvironment interface. Opposing effects of glycocalyx removal were observed, when comparing flat and specific nanotopographical conditions. The excessive retrograde actin flow speed and force loading are strongly reduced on certain nanotopographies upon removal of the native glycocalyx, while on the flat substrate we observe the opposite trend.Our results highlight the importance of the glycocalyx configuration in a molecular clutch force loading-dependent cellular mechanism for mechanosensing of microenvironmental nanotopographical features.
- Published
- 2021