Crosstalk between Cell Adhesion Complexes in Regulation of Mechanotransduction

Physical forces regulate numerous biological processes during development, physiology, and pathology. Forces between the external environment and intracellular actin cytoskeleton are primarily transmitted through integrin-containing focal adhesions and cadherin-containing adherens junctions. Crosstalk between these complexes is well established and modulates the mechanical landscape of the cell. However, integrins and cadherins constitute large families of adhesion receptors and form multiple complexes by interacting with different ligands, adaptor proteins, and cytoskeletal filaments. Recent findings indicate that integrin-containing hemidesmosomes oppose force transduction and traction force generation by focal adhesions. The cytolinker plectin mediates this crosstalk by coupling intermediate filaments to the actin cytoskeleton. Similarly, cadherins in desmosomes might modulate force generation by adherens junctions. Moreover, mechanotransduction can be influenced by podosomes, clathrin lattices, and tetraspanin-enriched microdomains. This review discusses mechanotransduction by multiple integrin- and cadherin-based cell adhesion complexes, which together with the associated cytoskeleton form an integrated network that allows cells to sense, process, and respond to their physical environment.

Eph receptor and ephrin function in breast, gut, and skin epithelia

Epithelial cells are tightly coupled together through specialized intercellular junctions, including adherens junctions, desmosomes, tight junctions, and gap junctions. A growing body of evidence suggests epithelial cells also directly exchange information at cell-cell contacts via the Eph family of receptor tyrosine kinases and their membrane-associated ephrin ligands. Ligand-dependent and -independent signaling via Eph receptors as well as reverse signaling through ephrins impact epithelial tissue homeostasis by organizing stem cell compartments and regulating cell proliferation, migration, adhesion, differentiation, and survival. This review focuses on breast, gut, and skin epithelia as representative examples for how Eph receptors and ephrins modulate diverse epithelial cell responses in a context-dependent manner. Abnormal Eph receptor and ephrin signaling is implicated in a variety of epithelial diseases raising the intriguing possibility that this cell-cell communication pathway can be therapeutically harnessed to normalize epithelial function in pathological settings like cancer or chronic inflammation.

Cell-cell adhesion interface: orthogonal and parallel forces from contraction, protrusion, and retraction

The epithelial lateral membrane plays a central role in the integration of intercellular signals and, by doing so, is a principal determinant in the emerging properties of epithelial tissues. Mechanical force, when applied to the lateral cell-cell interface, can modulate the strength of adhesion and influence intercellular dynamics. Yet the relationship between mechanical force and epithelial cell behavior is complex and not completely understood. This commentary aims to provide an investigative look at the usage of cellular forces at the epithelial cell-cell adhesion interface.

HIV-1 Vpr drives a tissue residency-like phenotype during selective infection of resting memory T cells

HIV-1 replicates in CD4+ T cells, leading to AIDS. Determining how HIV-1 shapes its niche to create a permissive environment is central to informing efforts to limit pathogenesis, disturb reservoirs, and achieve a cure. A key roadblock in understanding HIV-T cell interactions is the requirement to activate T cells in vitro to make them permissive to infection. This dramatically alters T cell biology and virus-host interactions. Here we show that HIV-1 cell-to-cell spread permits efficient, productive infection of resting memory T cells without prior activation. Strikingly, we find that HIV-1 infection primes resting T cells to gain characteristics of tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM), including upregulating key surface markers and the transcription factor Blimp-1 and inducing a transcriptional program overlapping the core TRM transcriptional signature. This reprogramming is driven by Vpr and requires Vpr packaging into virions and manipulation of STAT5. Thus, HIV-1 reprograms resting T cells, with implications for viral replication and persistence.

HIV-1 and BLV are insensitive to SERINC5 restriction under the cell-cell infection

Serine incorporator 5 (SERINC5, SER5) suppresses viral cell-free infection. However, its antiviral potency under viral cell-cell infection is not examined yet. Here, we established the in vitro cell-cell infection systems to assess SER5's antiviral activity on HIV-1 and bovine leukemia virus (BLV). Our results showed SER5 from different mammalian species, including Homo sapiens, Bos taurus, and Felis catus, was capable of significantly inhibiting HIV-1 cell-free infection. However, these SER5s were unable to restrict HIV-1 cell-cell infection. Intriguingly, Ebola virus glycoprotein-mediated pseudoviral cell-free infection was greatly enhanced by Homo sapiens and Bos taurus SER5. Notably, BLV was also insensitive to SER5-mediated restriction under the cell-cell infection. In addition, BLV envelope glycoproteins, which contained one glycosylation variation, were not restricted by SER5 in the model of cell-cell infection. Overall, our results indicated SER5 was ineffective against HIV-1 and BLV under the cell-cell infection, which was utilized by them to circumvent SER5-imposed restriction in vitro and may aid their transmission in vivo.IMPORTANCESER5 potently inhibits virus infection under the cell-free mode. However, few studies check whether SER5 keeps its restriction under the virus cell-cell transmission. In this work, we uncover SER5 loses its restriction to HIV-1 and BLV under the mode of cell-cell infection, demonstrating the viruses could employ this mode to overcome SER5 restriction and thus facilitate their transmission.