Keratin intermediate filament involvement in simple epithelial cell mechanical activity

细胞感知和适应机械刺激的能力对于细胞在发育过程中的迁移、生长和分化等基本细胞活动至关重要。力从细胞外基质（ECM）或肌动蛋白细胞骨架内产生的细胞内转移到膜表面。在这两种情况下，机械力都集中在整合素上，整合素聚集在焦点粘附（FA）位点内，并将ECM与肌动蛋白细胞骨架连接起来。然而，对于依赖细胞类型的中间丝（IFs），如角蛋白IFs和相关的细胞-细胞粘附事件，对上皮细胞机械活性的贡献知之甚少。此外，角蛋白干扰素是否在器官发育中发挥调节作用尚不清楚。

The ability of cells to sense and adapt to mechanical stimuli is critical for basic cellular activities like migration, growth, and differentiation, during development. Forces are transferred to the surface membrane from the extracellular matrix (ECM) or intracellularly generated within the actin cytoskeleton. In both cases, the mechanical forces converge on integrins, which cluster within focal adhesion (FA) sites and link ECM to actin cytoskeleton. However, little is known about the contribution of the cell-type dependent intermediate filaments (IFs), such as keratin IFs, and related cell-cell adhesion events, to epithelial cell mechanical activity. Moreover, whether keratin IFs exert a regulatory role in organ development is unclear.