E-cadherin junction formation involves an active kinetic nucleation process
Biswas KH., Hartman KL., Yu C-H., Harrison OJ., Song H., Smith AW., Huang WYC., Lin W-C., Guo Z., Padmanabhan A., Troyanovsky SM., Dustin ML., Shapiro L., Honig B., Zaidel-Bar R., Groves JT.
Significance Epithelial (E)-cadherin-based adherens junctions are the basis of epithelial tissue integrity in Metazoans. They are composed of E-cadherin molecules interacting with each other from apposed cells. Using artificial supported lipid bilayers functionalized with the full-length extracellular domain of E-cadherin and live cells, we show that E-cadherin junction formation involves a nucleation process mediated by active filopodia retraction and requiring reduced mobility of E-cadherin on supported lipid bilayers. These results underscore the importance of controlling physical aspects of the cellular microenvironment with synthetic materials for in vitro live cell applications. In this case, tuning the mobility of a viscous fluid display surface enabled functional reconstitution of a cadherin-mediated adhesion junction.