UMONS secures a WEAVE project to uncover the secrets of mechanical memory in migrating cells
As they move through living tissues, cells pass through narrow spaces, bypass obstacles and evolve in constantly changing environments. Faced with these constraints, do they merely react to what they encounter, or do they retain a trace of their past experiences?
This is the question at the heart of the new research project led by Sylvain Gabriele, head of the SYMBIOSE laboratory and President of the UMONS Biosciences Institute, in collaboration with David Brückner, from the University of Basel. Selected under the WEAVE programme, the project has received funding to further investigate a recent discovery made by the two teams.
When cells remember their past
For a long time, biologists believed that cells only reacted to the signals they perceived at a given moment. Recent work by the teams in Mons and Basel has revealed an unexpected phenomenon: certain epithelial cells, found on the surface of many tissues and organs, retain a memory of the mechanical constraints encountered along their path. This memory then appears to influence their behaviour when they move through new environments.
“We have shown that cells do not simply react to their immediate environment. They also retain a form of mechanical memory that influences their future behaviours,” explains Sylvain Gabriele.
The researchers have notably identified the actin cortex, a thin structure located beneath the cell membrane, as a potential support for this mechanical memory.
An international collaboration to decipher mechanical memory
Thanks to the joint support of the F.R.S.-FNRS and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the teams from UMONS and the University of Basel will now seek to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying this memory, and how it influences the decisions made by cells in complex environments.
The aim is also to develop a model capable of predicting how cells move according to their past experience, and to gain a better understanding of the biological mechanisms behind these behaviours.
In the long term, this research could help improve our understanding of how cells navigate within living tissues, both in abnormal and physiological situations. This knowledge could notably shed new light on mechanisms involved in the cellular invasion observed in many diseases, including certain cancers, and open up new avenues for understanding and treating them.
