biosights: January 2, 2018

Ring out your dead: MRCKα cleavage triggers epithelial extrusion

Dying epithelial cells are extruded from the tissue by a basal actomyosin ring formed in neighboring, healthy cells. Gagliardi et al. reveal that epithelial extrusion is also driven by actin rearrangements in the apoptotic cell, where cleavage of the kinase MRCKα induces the assembly of an apical actin ring that collapses the cell body and moves the dying cell upward. This biosights episode presents the paper by Gagliardi et al. from the January 2nd, 2018, issue of the Journal of Cell Biology and includes an interview with the paper's first author, Paolo Gagliardi (Candiolo Cancer Institute, Candiolo, Italy). Produced by Caitlin Sedwick and Ben Short. See the associated paper in JCB for details on the funding provided to support this original research.

Subscribe to biosights via iTunes or RSS View biosights archive

The Rockefeller University Press biosights@rockefeller.edu