Adhesion of active cytoskeletal vesicles

Abstract Regulation of adhesion is a ubiquitous feature of living cells, observed during processes such as motility, antigen recognition or rigidity sensing. At the molecular scale, a myriad of mechanisms are necessary to recruit and activate the essential proteins, while at the cellular scale efficient regulation of adhesion relies on the cell’s ability to adapt its global shape. To understand the role of shape remodeling during adhesion, we use a synthetic biology approach to design a minimal model, starting with a limited number of building blocks. We assemble cytoskeletal vesicles whose size, reduced volume, and cytoskeleton contractility can be independently tuned. We are able to show that these cytoskeletal vesicles can sustain strong adhesion to solid substrates only if molecular motors are able to actively remodel the actin cortex. When the cytoskeletal vesicles are deformed under hypertonic osmotic pressure, they develop a crumpled geometry with huge deformations. In the presence of molecular motors, these deformations are dynamic in nature and can compensate for an absence of excess membrane area needed for adhesion to take place. When the cytoskeletal deformations are able to compensate for lack of excess membrane area, the cytoskeletal vesicles are able to attach to the rigid glass surfaces even under strong adhesive forces. The balance of deformability and adhesion strength is identified to be key to enable cytoskeletal vesicles to adhere to solid substrates.