{"doi":"10.1073/pnas.2408459121","title":"Nanoscale dynamics of the cadherin–catenin complex bound to vinculin revealed by neutron spin echo spectroscopy","abstract":"We report a neutron spin echo (NSE) study of the nanoscale dynamics of the cell-cell adhesion cadherin-catenin complex bound to vinculin. Our measurements and theoretical physics analyses of the NSE data reveal that the dynamics of full-length α-catenin, β-catenin, and vinculin residing in the cadherin-catenin-vinculin complex become activated, involving nanoscale motions in this complex. The cadherin-catenin complex is the central component of the cell-cell adherens junction (AJ) and is fundamental to embryogenesis, tissue wound healing, neuronal plasticity, cancer metastasis, and cardiovascular health and disease. A highly dynamic cadherin-catenin-vinculin complex provides the molecular dynamics basis for the flexibility and elasticity that are necessary for the AJs to function as force transducers. Our theoretical physics analysis provides a way to elucidate these driving nanoscale motions within the complex without requiring large-scale numerical simulations, providing insights not accessible by other techniques. We propose a three-way \"motorman\" entropic spring model for the dynamic cadherin-catenin-vinculin complex, which allows the complex to function as a flexible and elastic force transducer.","journal":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences","year":2024,"id":469210,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9486,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1115261,"name":"Iain D. Nicholl","orcid":"0000-0003-3803-7039","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1115767,"name":"Bright Shi","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1302955,"name":"Gilbert Reyes","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1302578,"name":"B. Farago","orcid":"0000-0002-4651-0044","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1115263,"name":"Zimei Bu","orcid":"0000-0003-4422-1393","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1115262,"name":"David J.E. Callaway","orcid":"0000-0001-5270-1659","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":61,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:05:28.027781Z","pmid":"39298480","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}