Resolving the building blocks and assembly principles of cell adhesion machineries

Short Talk by Eli ZAMIR, from theDepartment of Systemic Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund DE, about how  adhesion sites get self-assembled and function.

• Adhesion sites contain hundred different proteins called integrin adhesome. This proteins interact with each other, self-organizing as diverse adhesion sites with distinct properties
• Studies have been carried out about this self assembly, investigating the state of the integrin adhesome network in the cytosol and space and time relations with focal adhesions
• Using FCCS and FRAP measurements, it was found that cytosol complexes correlate with the internal organization: integrin adhesome is extensively pre-assembled in the cytosol, forming multi-protein building blocks for adhesion sites that are combinatorially diversified, and they correlate with the structural and functional organization of proteins across focal adhesions.
• Building blocks enter and exit this focal adhesions without being altered, preserving specifications and assembly logic. They are currently investigating the recruitment of specific multi-protein blocs to focal adhesions and its regulation to decipher this assembly logic.