ORCID
Alison Patteson: 0000-0002-4004-1734
Minh Tri Ho Thanh: 0000-0002-9380-0191
Katherine Kerr: 0000-0003-1238-6564
Document Type
Article
Date
Winter 12-9-2022
Keywords
vimentin, cytoskeleton, extracellular matrix, cell adhesion, cell migration, glycocalyx
Language
English
Funder(s)
National Institutes of Health, Syracuse University SOURCE award, US National Science Foundation Center for Engineering Mechanobiology, and the National Science Center of Poland
Funding ID
NIH R35GM136259, NIH R35GM14296, CMMI-1548571, and UMO-2020/01/0/NZ6/ 00082
Acknowledgements
We thank Robert Goldman, John Eriksson, and Karen Ridge for materials and insightful discussions. We thank Bobby Carroll for assisting in vimentin preparations.
Official Citation
Bucki R, Iwamoto DV, Shi X, Kerr KE, Byfield FJ, Suprewicz Ł, Skłodowski K, Sutaria J, Misiak P, Wilczewska AZ, Ramachandran S, Wolfe A, Thanh MH, Whalen E, Patteson AE, Janmey PA. Extracellular vimentin is sufficient to promote cell attachment, spreading, and motility by a mechanism involving N-acetyl glucosamine-containing structures. J Biol Chem. 2023 Aug;299(8):104963. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2023.104963. Epub 2023 Jun 24. PMID: 37356720; PMCID: PMC10392088.
Disciplines
Physics
Description/Abstract
Vimentin intermediate !laments form part of the cytoskeleton
of mesenchymal cells, but under pathological conditions often
associatedwith in"ammation, vimentin !laments depolymerize as
the result of phosphorylation or citrullination, and vimentin
oligomers are secreted or released into the extracellular environment.
In the extracellular space, vimentin can bind surfaces of cells
and the extracellular matrix, and the interaction between extracellular
vimentin and cells can trigger changes in cellular functions,
such as activation of !broblasts to a !brotic phenotype. The
mechanism by which extracellular vimentin binds external cell
membranes and whether vimentin alone can act as an adhesive
anchor for cells is largely uncharacterized. Here, we show that
various cell types (normal and vimentin null !broblasts, mesenchymal
stem cells, and A549 lung carcinoma cells) attach to and
spread on polyacrylamide hydrogel substrates covalently linked to
vimentin. Using traction force microscopy and spheroid expansion
assays, we characterize how different cell types respond to
extracellular vimentin. Cell attachment to and spreading on
vimentin-coated surfaces is inhibited by hyaluronic acid degrading
enzymes, hyaluronic acid synthase inhibitors, soluble heparin
or N-acetyl glucosamine, all of which are treatments that have
little or no effect on the same cell types binding to collagen-coated
hydrogels. These studies highlight the effectiveness of substratebound
vimentin as a ligand for cells and suggest that carbohydrate
structures, including the glycocalyx and glycosylated cell
surface proteins that contain N-acetyl glucosamine, form a novel
class of adhesion receptors for extracellular vimentin that can
either directly support cell adhesion to a substrate or !ne-tune the
glycocalyx adhesive properties.
Recommended Citation
Bucki R, Iwamoto DV, Shi X, Kerr KE, Byfield FJ, Suprewicz Ł, Skłodowski K, Sutaria J, Misiak P, Wilczewska AZ, Ramachandran S, Wolfe A, Thanh MH, Whalen E, Patteson AE, Janmey PA. Extracellular vimentin is sufficient to promote cell attachment, spreading, and motility by a mechanism involving N-acetyl glucosamine-containing structures. J Biol Chem. 2023 Aug;299(8):104963. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2023.104963. Epub 2023 Jun 24. PMID: 37356720; PMCID: PMC10392088.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
