Cells navigating through complex tissues face a fundamental challenge: while multiple protrusions explore different paths, the cell needs to avoid entanglement. How a cell surveys and then corrects its own shape is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that spatially distinct microtubule dynamics regulate amoeboid cell migration by locally promoting the retraction of protrusions. In migrating dendritic cells, local microtubule depolymerization within protrusions remote from the microtubule organizing center triggers actomyosin contractility controlled by RhoA and its exchange factor Lfc. Depletion of Lfc leads to aberrant myosin localization, thereby causing two effects that rate-limit locomotion: (1) impaired cell edge coordination during path finding and (2) defective adhesion resolution. Compromised shape control is particularly hindering in geometrically complex microenvironments, where it leads to entanglement and ultimately fragmentation of the cell body. We thus demonstrate that microtubules can act as a proprioceptive device: they sense cell shape and control actomyosin retraction to sustain cellular coherence.

中文翻译：

---

微管控制变形虫迁移细胞的细胞形状和一致性

在复杂组织中导航的细胞面临着一个根本性的挑战：当多个突起探索不同的路径时，细胞需要避免纠缠。人们对细胞如何测量并纠正其自身形状知之甚少。在这里，我们证明了空间上不同的微管动力学通过局部促进突起的回缩来调节变形虫细胞的迁移。在迁移树突状细胞中，远离微管组织中心的突起内的局部微管解聚触发由 RhoA 及其交换因子 Lfc 控制的肌动球蛋白收缩性。Lfc 的耗竭会导致肌球蛋白定位异常，从而导致两种限制运动速率的效应：(1) 寻路过程中细胞边缘协调受损；(2) 粘附分辨率缺陷。形状控制的妥协在几何复杂的微环境中尤其具有阻碍性，它会导致细胞体缠结并最终破碎。因此，我们证明微管可以充当本体感受装置：它们感知细胞形状并控制肌动球蛋白回缩以维持细胞的一致性。