抄録
Stress fibers (SFs) play essential roles in various cellular events including cell movement and shape maintenance. Recently, we found that SFs reappeared after temporal disruption with cytochalasin D had similar orientation to those before disruption in vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs). This may indicate the cells have a memory of SF orientation. We previously found that focal adhesion arrangement served as this memory, while microtubules acted as its eraser. However, the role of intermediate filaments (IFs) to the memory remained unclear. Here we investigated the reproducing mechanism of SF orientation and their internal tension levels with regard to the effects of IFs. We disrupted SFs completely with cytochalasin D for 1 h, and let them reorganize in the drug-free medium for 3 h. IFs were disrupted with acrylamide during the disruption or reorganization process of SFs. The reorganized SFs appeared as they had been in the presence of IFs, and their internal tension levels were also reproduced. In contrast, SFs showed random orientation in the absence of IFs. These results may indicate that IFs have a potential interaction with SFs and serve as a guide leading SFs to focal adhesions to facilitate their memory of orientation and internal tension levels.
