The Drosophila Afadin and ZO-1 homologs Canoe and Polychaetoid act in parallel to maintain epithelial integrity when challenged by adherens junction remodeling.

The Drosophila Afadin and ZO-1 homologs Canoe and Polychaetoid act in parallel to maintain epithelial integrity when challenged by adherens junction remodeling. Mol Biol Cell. 2019 Jun 12;:mbcE19040209 Authors: Manning LA, Perez-Vale KZ, Schaefer KN, Sewell MT, Peifer M Abstract During morphogenesis cells must change shape and move without disrupting tissue integrity. This requires cell-cell junctions to allow dynamic remodeling while resisting force generated by the actomyosin cytoskeleton. Multiple proteins play roles in junctional-cytoskeletal linkage, but the mechanisms by which they act remain unclear. Drosophila Canoe maintains adherens junction-cytoskeletal linkage during gastrulation. Canoe's mammalian homolog Afadin plays similar roles in cultured cells, working in parallel with ZO-1 proteins, particularly at multicellular junctions. We took these insights back into the fly embryo, exploring how cells maintain epithelial integrity when challenged by adherens junction remodeling during germband extension and dorsal closure. We found Canoe helps cells maintain junctional-cytoskeletal linkage when challenged by the junctional remodeling inherent in mitosis, cell intercalation and neuroblast invagination or by forces generated by the actomyosin cable at the leading edge. However, even in the absence of Canoe many cells retain epithelial integrity. This is explained by a parallel role played by the ZO-1 homolog Polychaetoid. In e...
Source: Mol Biol Cell - Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Tags: Mol Biol Cell Source Type: research