Qin, X., Park, B.O., Liu, J., Chen, B., Choesmel-Cadamuro, V., Belguise, K., Heo, W.D., Wang, X. (2017). Cell-matrix adhesion and cell-cell adhesion differentially control basal myosin oscillation and Drosophila egg chamber elongation.  Nat. Commun. 8(): 14708.

FBrf0235291

Research paper

Pulsatile actomyosin contractility, important in tissue morphogenesis, has been studied mainly in apical but less in basal domains. Basal myosin oscillation underlying egg chamber elongation is regulated by both cell-matrix and cell-cell adhesions. However, the mechanism by which these two adhesions govern basal myosin oscillation and tissue elongation is unknown. Here we demonstrate that cell-matrix adhesion positively regulates basal junctional Rho1 activity and medio-basal ROCK and myosin activities, thus strongly controlling tissue elongation. Differently, cell-cell adhesion governs basal myosin oscillation through controlling medio-basal distributions of both ROCK and myosin signals, which are related to the spatial limitations of cell-matrix adhesion and stress fibres. Contrary to cell-matrix adhesion, cell-cell adhesion weakly affects tissue elongation. In vivo optogenetic protein inhibition spatiotemporally confirms the different effects of these two adhesions on basal myosin oscillation. This study highlights the activity and distribution controls of basal myosin contractility mediated by cell-matrix and cell-cell adhesions, respectively, during tissue morphogenesis.

PMC5399299 (PMC) (EuropePMC)