Assembly of tight junction belts by ZO1 surface condensation and local actin polymerization

• DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2024.12.012
• Publication Date: 2024-12-31T16:06:06Z
• Authors: Daxiao Sun; Xueping Zhao; Tina Wiegand; Cecilie Martin-Le...; Tom Borianne; Lennart Kleinschmidt; Stephan W. Grill; Anthony A. Hyman; Christoph Weber; Alf Honigmann

Tight junctions play an essential role in sealing tissues, by forming belts of adhesion strands around cellular perimeters. Recent work has shown that the condensation ZO1 scaffold proteins is required for tight junction assembly. However, mechanisms which junctional condensates initiate at cell-cell contacts and elongate cell perimeters remain unknown. Combining biochemical reconstitutions live-cell imaging MDCKII tissue, we found belt formation driven receptor-mediated surface coupled to local actin polymerization. Adhesion receptor oligomerization provides signal binding membrane. Condensation produces a molecular selectively enriches proteins. Finally, directly facilitate polymerization filament bundling, driving elongation into continuous belt. More broadly, our identifies how cells couple with cytoskeleton organization assemble structure complexes.