Back

Force transmission balance through adhesions determines multicellular handedness

Ishibashi, T.; Nishizawa, R.; Ogita, G.; Tokushige, N.; Shibata, T.

2026-04-07 cell biology
10.64898/2026.04.04.716462 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Cell chirality has been implicated in left-right (LR) asymmetric morphogenesis, yet multicellular handedness is not a simple readout of single-cell chirality. Here, we show that multicellular LR asymmetry is determined by the balance of force transmission through cell-cell and cell-substrate adhesions. Combining experiments in human epithelial cells with theoretical modeling, we demonstrate that clockwise-rotating single cells can generate either clockwise or counterclockwise collective rotation depending on whether chiral forces are transmitted primarily through adherens junctions or focal adhesions, without altering single-cell chirality itself. Mechanistically, microtubules promoted junctional force transmission by recruiting the actin-microtubule crosslinker ACF7 to cell-cell contacts, where ACF7 stabilized F-actin and enabled intercellular mechanical coupling. Our results define a mechanical framework in which the routing of chiral forces through adhesions, rather than single-cell chirality alone, determines multicellular handedness.

Matching journals

The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.