New directions in epithelial mechanoadaptation

Cells are active mechanical objects: they are subject to forces, exert force, and interpret changes in force as biological information. We now understand much about how this occurs at the molecular and single-cell level. We also appreciate that mechanobiology gains even greater complexity when it operates at the multicellular level of tissues and organisms. Here, cells exert forces on other cells within tissues to support morphogenesis and homeostasis; but these forces must also be accommodated to ensure that tissue integrity is preserved. Cell–cell adhesion junctions play important roles in transmitting, resisting, as well as detecting mechanical forces in coherent tissues. In this brief article we consider how epithelia adapt to mechanical stresses, focusing on recent developments in understanding the sources of force and new mechanisms for adherens junctions and desmosomes in mechanotransduction.