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In a pair of papers published in the same issue of Cell in 2015, two groups showed that putting physical pressure on cells—by confining them, for instance—causes previously stationary cells to start moving quickly. But it wasn’t clear how cells translated being squished into relocating. Many of the same researchers, again working in two independent teams, have now found that the nucleus is responsible for sensing changes in pressure and triggering the signaling cascade that leads cells to get moving. Both studies were published today (October 15) in Science.
“Even five years ago, people would shake their heads that the nucleus is nothing but a bowling ball inside of a snake. It was just this big, dense, unnecessary thing the cell had to drag along out of desperation because it had the DNA inside of it,” says Kris Dahl, a chemical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University who ...
