During animal development, cells need to sense and adapt to mechanical forces from their environment. Ultimately, these forces are transduced through the actomyosin cortex. How the cortex simultaneously responds to and creates forces during cytokinesis is not well understood. Here we show that under mechanical stress, cortical actomyosin flow switches polarization during cytokinesis in the C. elegans embryo. In unstressed embryos, longitudinal cortical flow contributes to contractile ring formation, while rotational cortical flow is additionally induced in uniaxially loaded embryos. Rotational flow depends on astral microtubule signals and is required for the redistribution of the actomyosin cortex in loaded embryos. Rupture of longitudinally aligned cortical fibers during cortex rotation releases tension, initiates orthogonal longitudinal flow and thereby contributes to furrowing in loaded embryos. Moreover, actomyosin regulators involved in RhoA regulation, cortical polarity and chirality are all required for rotational flow and become essential for cytokinesis under mechanical stress. In sum, our findings extend the current framework of mechanical stress response during cell division and show scaling of orthogonal cortical flows to the amount of mechanical stress.
Mechanical stress induces a scalable switch in cortical flow polarization during cytokinesis
Authors contributed equally.
Currently Viewing Accepted Manuscript - Newer Version Available
Deepika Singh, Devang Odedra, Priyanka Dutta, Christian Pohl; Mechanical stress induces a scalable switch in cortical flow polarization during cytokinesis. J Cell Sci 2019; jcs.231357. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.231357
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