Compressed Cells Facilitate Adhesion Through Glycocalyx

Exposed to mechanical confinement, mammalian cells can establish remarkable unspecific adhesion, which is independent of integrins. How cells facilitate such adhesion remains unclear. Here, it is investigated how mammalian cells exposed to compression initiate unspecific and integrin-mediated adhesion. It is observed that with increasing compression, cells increase adhesion to collagen I or fibronectin and strengthen adhesion faster. Under low and medium compression, cells minimally increase unspecific adhesion to substrates that lack specific binding sites for cell surface receptors, such as integrins. However, under high compression, mammalian cells switch to a strong unspecific adhesion state, which significantly contributes to cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) adhesion. Thereby cells use the glycocalyx to directly facilitate strong unspecific adhesion and to enhance early integrin-mediated adhesion. The mechanistic insight of how cells unspecifically adhere to substrates under confinement opens avenues to better understand cell adhesion in development, homeostasis, disease, and in a wide range of biotechnological and medical applications in which cells are exposed to mechanical confinement.