James P. Butler

TL;DR: The results suggest that integrins act as mechanoreceptors and transmit mechanical signals to the cytoskeleton, which may be mediated simultaneously at multiple locations inside the cell through force-induced rearrangements within a tensionally integrated cytos skeleton.

TL;DR: A scaling law is reported that governs both the elastic and frictional properties of a wide variety of living cell types, over a wide range of time scales and under a variety of biological interventions, and implies that cytoskeletal proteins may regulate cell mechanical properties mainly by modulating the effective noise temperature of the matrix.

TL;DR: These unexpected findings demonstrate that although the leader cell may have a pivotal role in local cell guidance, physical forces that it generates are but a small part of a global tug-of-war involving cells well back from the leading edge.

TL;DR: This paper presents an exact solution to the problem of computing the traction field from the observed displacement field, and gives explicit formulas for reducing the traction and displacement fields to contraction moments, the orientation of the principal axes of traction, and the strain energy imparted by the cell to the substrate.

TL;DR: Migrations of both endothelial and epithelial monolayers conform to this behavior, as do breast cancer cell lines before but not after the epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and collective migration in these diverse systems is seen to be governed by a simple but unifying physiological principle.