BBB seminar: Christoph Ballestrem
The story of how vinculin controls cell adhesion
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Christoph Ballestrem
Welcome Trust Centre for Cell Matrix Research Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, UK
For coordinated cell migration, cells need to form and disassemble cell-matrix adhesions (focal adhesions) where integrins are connected to the actin cytoskeleton. The link between integrins and the actin cytoskeleton is regulated by a network of signalling proteins comprising over 100 molecules. However, it is unclear how this network of molecules regulates cell-matrix assembly and disassembly. Vinculin is a multi-domain focal adhesion component, which with its large number of potential binding partners has the ability to interconnect signals in focal adhesion. Despite the well-characterised structure of vinculin, the molecular mechanisms underlying its action in cells have remained unclear. In my talk I will present how we elucidated the role of vinculin in the regulation of cell-matrix interactions.
Host: Alexandre Micoulet <micoulet@biomed.uib.no>, Department of Biomedicine