α-Catenin Controls the Anisotropy of Force Distribution at Cell-Cell Junctions during Collective Cell Migration

Adherens junctions (AJs) control epithelial cell behavior, such as collective movement and morphological changes, during development and in disease. However, the molecular mechanism of AJ remodeling remains incompletely understood. Here, we report that the conformational activation of α-catenin is the key event in the dynamic regulation of AJ remodeling. α-catenin activates RhoA to increase actomyosin contractility at cell-cell junctions. This leads to the stabilization of activated α-catenin, in part through the recruitment of the actin-binding proteins, vinculin and afadin. In this way, α-catenin regulates force sensing, as well as force transmission, through a Rho-mediated feedback mechanism. We further show that this is important for stable directional alignment of multiple cells during collective cell movement by both experimental observation and mathematical modeling. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that α-catenin controls the establishment of anisotropic force distribution at cell junctions to enable cooperative movement of the epithelial cell sheet. Collective cell movement requires multicellular coordination. Matsuzawa et al. show that anisotropic distribution of activated α-catenin is necessary to establish directional coordination of collectively migrating epithelial cells. α-catenin activation achieves this by modifying lateral cell adhesions through protein recruitment and activation of F-actin polymerization signaling.