Professor Roberto Mayor's lab publishes four papers, including in Nature Comms., on cellular biology

Professor Roberto Mayor's lab recently published on four research projects, relating to 'frictiotaxis' (in cell migration), microtubule dynamics, 'actuation' (chemical induction), and bio-mechanical interactions, respectively.

Roberto Mayor, Professor of Developmental & Cellular Neurobiology in UCL's Research Department of Cell & Developmental Biology (UCL CDB), is co-author of four recent papers based on research by his lab. 

The first, led by UCL CDB’s Adam Shellard and Kai Weißenbruch, describes a new cue for directional migration that the authors have named ‘frictiotaxis’: instead of relying on cell adhesion to migrate, cells sense a gradient of friction within the substrate. The paper includes experiment and theory developed in collaboration with Ricard Alert (Max Planck Institute &c, Dresden, Germany).

Frictiotaxis underlies focal adhesion-independent durotaxis. Shellard A, Weißenbruch K, Hampshire PAE, Stillman NR, Dix CL, Thorogate R, Imbert A, Charras G, Alert R, Mayor R. Nature Communications. 2025 Apr 23;16(1):3811. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-58912-1.PMID: 40268931.

Another paper is based on a collaboration between the Mayor lab and Marcela Torrejon’s lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Universidad de Concepción, Chile. Their research identifies how microtube dynamics are regulated during neural crest migration in the African tree frog (Xenopus).  The neural crest is essentially a team of cells that travel through the body during development and become a variety of specialist cell types (e.g., nerve or bone cells).  The paper highlights a crucial role for a G-protein subunit (Gαi2) in cranial neural crest cell migration by modulating microtubule dynamics.  It does this through the action of the microtubule-associated protein (EB1) and another protein (Rac1) that switches on/off various cellular processes activity.

Interaction of Gαi2 with EB1 controls microtubule dynamics and Rac1 activity in Xenopus neural crest cell migration. Villaseca S, Leal JI, Tovar LM, Ruiz MJ, Guajardo J, Morales-Navarrete H, Mayor R, Torrejón M. Development. 2025 Apr 15;152(8):dev204235. doi: 10.1242/dev.204235.

Additionally, a review by UCL CDB’s Matyas Bubna-Litic acknowledges that much of the focus in mechanobiology during embryo development has been on how the mechanical properties of a cell affect its behaviour and fate determination.  But Matyas proposes the interesting idea that tissues can induce a change in the mechanical properties of adjacent cells by a process equivalent to chemical induction, which he calls “actuation”.

Beyond mechanosensing: How cells sense and shape their physical environment during development. Bubna-Litic M, Mayor R. Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2025 Apr 9;94:102514. doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2025.102514. Online ahead of print. PMID: 40209565 Free article. Review.  

And, finally, the Mayor lab has shown that mechanical cues modify the response to Activin signalling during induction of the mesoderm (which gives rise to many body tissues during development).  Activin is a member of the TGFb family of multifunctional small proteins, called cytokines, that regulate various biological processes.  The mechanical cue in this case was uniaxial compression. 

Although the model used in this research was based on gastruloids (3D groups of stem cells capable of showing embryonic development) from the African clawed frog (Xenopus), the researchers’ findings can be applied in the future development of more biologically relevant and robust synthetic organoid systems. 

Tissue mechanics modulate morphogen signalling to induce the head organiser. Bubna-Litic M, Charras G, Mayor R. Cells Dev. 2024 Dec 2:203984. doi: 10.1016/j.cdev.2024.203984. Online ahead of print. PMID: 39631565 

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