ACS Nano 12, 9279−9290 (2018)

Collective cell migration, the motion of entire groups of cells as a single unit, occurs in development and in cancer metastasis. This behaviour arises from communications between cells — mediated by cadherins — and between cells and their environment — mediated by actins and integrins. Disrupting these communication pathways might provide a way to limit cancer metastasis. Integrin-targeted gold nanorods coupled with near-infrared irradiation have been used to achieve this goal, but the mechanisms underlying the effect have remained poorly understood.

Using mass spectroscopy-based phosphoproteomic analyses, Wu et al. now show that the above treatment induces variation in the phosphorylation pattern of key signalling proteins involved in cell adhesion and actin organization. This results in morphological changes of the actin filaments in the cytoskeleton, particularly at the cell junction. The authors observe a concomitant decrease in the expression level of proteins involved in cell–cell adhesion, such as N-cadherin and the tight junction protein ZO-2.