Microenvironment promotes cytoskeleton remodeling and adaptive phenotypic transition

[摘要] The cytoskeleton includes three main classes of networked filaments behaving as a coherent and complexstructure that confers stability to cell shape while serving as sensor of internal/extracellular changes.Microenvironmental stimuli interfere with the non-linear dynamics that govern cytoskeleton architecture, namely byfostering symmetry breakings and transitions across different phenotypic states. Such process induces a wholecoherent adaptive response, involving the reprogramming of biochemical and gene-expression patterns. Thesecharacteristics are especially relevant during development, and in those conditions in which a deregulated crosstalkbetween cells and the stroma is at the core of the pathological process. Therefore, studying how the cytoskeleton canbe modified–both pharmacologically and/or through microenvironment-dependent changes–has become a major areaof interest in cancer and developmental biology.

[学科分类] 仪器

[关键词] Cell scaffolding;environmental cues;non-equilibrium thermodynamics;phenotypic reversion;cell fate commitment