Foot Down

Dotted around on the inner surface of our cells, focal adhesions act like tiny 'feet', but how they sense the floor is still a little mysterious. In this mammalian cell, scientists use their own sensors to snoop on what’s going on using super-resolution microscopy. One sensor sticks to a molecule called integrin on the underside of the cell, stretching as it wriggles to release tiny bursts of light (red dots). The speckled pattern suggests clusters of integrin may determine where focal adhesions form inside the cell – seen as clusters of tiny bone-like actin filaments in the cell’s cytoskeleton (yellow showing the filaments closest to the underlying surface, blue furthest away). Researchers might aim to exploit this mechanical link between neighbouring molecules inside and outside cells to guide their movement in health and disease.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image from work by Thomas Schlichthaerle and Caroline Lindner, and Ralf Jungmann
• Faculty of Physics and Center for Nanoscience, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, May 2021