{"doi":"10.1101/2021.09.30.462556","title":"TES-1/Tes protects junctional actin networks under tension from self-injury during epidermal morphogenesis in the <i>C. elegans</i> embryo","abstract":"Abstract During embryonic morphogenesis, the integrity of epithelial tissues depends on the ability of cells in tissue sheets to undergo rapid changes in cell shape while preventing self-injury to junctional actin networks. LIM domain-containing repeat (LCR) proteins are recruited to sites of strained actin filaments in cultured cells [1–3], and are therefore promising candidates for mediating self-healing of actin networks, but whether they play similar roles in living organisms has not been determined. Here, we establish roles for Caenorhabditis elegans TES-1/Tes, an actin-binding LCR protein present at apical junctions, during epithelial morphogenesis. TES-1::GFP is recruited to apical junctions during embryonic elongation, when junctions are under tension; in embryos in which stochastic failure of cell elongation occurs, TES-1 is only strongly recruited to junctions in cells that successfully elongate, and recruitment is severely compromised in genetic backgrounds in which cell shape changes do not successfully occur. tes-1 mutant embryos display junctional F-actin defects, and loss of TES-1 strongly enhances tension-dependent injury of junctional actin networks in hypomorphic mutant backgrounds for CCC components, suggesting that TES-1 helps to prevent self-injury of junctional actin networks during rapid cell shape change. Consistent with such role, a fragment of TES-1 containing its LIM domains localizes to stress fiber strain sites (SFSS) in cultured vertebrate cells. Together, these data establish TES-1 as a tension-sensitive stabilizer of the junctional actin cytoskeleton during embryonic morphogenesis.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":226938,"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":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.959,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":830323,"name":"Bethany Lucas","orcid":"0000-0002-7629-1612","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":274908,"name":"Jonathan D. Winkelman","orcid":"0000-0002-8870-2917","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":830773,"name":"Sterling C.T. Martin","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":823316,"name":"Samuel Block","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":251453,"name":"Anjon Audhya","orcid":"0000-0002-7828-5152","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":274919,"name":"Margaret L. Gardel","orcid":"0000-0003-1846-9854","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":759748,"name":"Jeff Hardin","orcid":"0000-0001-7399-6580","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":830772,"name":"Allison M. Lynch","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":62,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:54:38.004707Z","pmid":null,"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":[]}