---
DOAJ_listed: '1'
OA_place: publisher
OA_type: gold
PlanS_conform: '1'
_id: '22911'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: The shape of animal cells is controlled by their surface, which comprises
    the cell cortex, a peripheral actin network, tethered to the plasma membrane by
    membrane-to-cortex attachment proteins. Changes in cortical components have long
    been considered to dominate the regulation of forces and mechanical properties
    at the cell surface and drive morphogenesis. Here, we show that the coupling of
    the cortex to the membrane is also key for the regulation of its mechanical properties.
    By combining molecular engineering with biophysical approaches and in-cell cryo-electron
    tomography we describe the cell surface with nanometer-resolution and link its
    organization to cell-scale mechanics. We find that membrane-to-cortex attachment
    proteins can physically draw the cortex closer to the membrane, in a density and
    length-dependent manner. This reduction of the membrane-to-cortex distance controls
    the activity of the formin mDia1, leading to a reduction in cortical tension.
    Our study thus defines a novel mechanism whereby the membrane-to-cortex distance
    is a functional geometrical parameter that regulates cell surface properties.
acknowledgement: We thank Jan Ellenberg (SciLifeLab), Stephan Grill (MPI-CBG), Anna
  Erzberger (EMBL) and members of the Diz-Muñoz lab for a critical reading of the
  manuscript. We thank Estela Sosa Osorio (EMBL) and Gisela Juliachs Torroella (EMBL)
  for manual curation of actin segmentation in cryo-electron tomograms, and Evgenia
  Zagoriy (EMBL) and Mukthi Ammai Sridharan Iyer (EMBL) for the visual inspection
  of actin branching points in cryo-electron tomograms. We thank Anne-Cecyle Reyman
  (IGBMC) and her team for extended discussion and inspiring experiments. We thank
  Ruben Tesoro Moreno (EMBL) for Alphafold predictions. We thank Jan Faix (Hannover
  Medical School) for the mDia1 constructs and Jamie Hackett (EMBL Rome) for the Piggybac
  vectors. We thank Sarah Kaspar in the EMBL Data Science Centre for help with statistical
  methods. We thank the EMBL Flow Cytometry Core Facility (especially Daniel Gimenes),
  the EMBL advanced light microscopy facility (especially Marko Lampe and Beate Neumann
  for microscope support, and Christian Tischer for help with image analysis), EMBL
  IT (especially Thomas Hoffmann), and the EMBL cryo-EM platform for support and advice.
  We thank Albert Dominguez Mantes (EPFL) for helpful discussions about Spotiflow.
  We acknowledge the financial support of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory
  (EMBL) to J.M. and A.D-M., the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grant DI 2205/3-1,
  the Human Frontiers Science Program (HFSP) grant RGY0073/2018 and ERC grant 101124221
  (MitoMeChAnics) to A.D-M., the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds PhD fellowship and the
  Croucher Scholarship for Doctoral Study to D.C., the EMBL interdisciplinary Postdoc
  (EIPOD) programme under Marie Curie Cofund Actions MSCA-COFUND-FP to M.S. and M.T-N.,
  the EMBO fellowship to S.F.G., the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-21-CE13-0048)
  to O.D.R. and J.H.; This work is partially funded by the European Union. Views and
  opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily
  reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency.
  Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for
  them. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
article_number: '9501'
article_processing_charge: Yes (via OA deal)
article_type: original
author:
- first_name: Léanne
  full_name: Strauss, Léanne
  last_name: Strauss
- first_name: Sergio
  full_name: Lembo, Sergio
  id: d993a7b2-292f-11ed-aaac-fb045a912e31
  last_name: Lembo
  orcid: 0000-0002-2253-8771
- first_name: Samuel F.
  full_name: Gérard, Samuel F.
  last_name: Gérard
- first_name: Marc
  full_name: Siggel, Marc
  last_name: Siggel
- first_name: Dorothy
  full_name: Cheng, Dorothy
  last_name: Cheng
- first_name: Martin
  full_name: Bergert, Martin
  last_name: Bergert
- first_name: Sarah K.
  full_name: Foster, Sarah K.
  last_name: Foster
- first_name: Joseph
  full_name: Vermeil, Joseph
  last_name: Vermeil
- first_name: Mauricio
  full_name: Toro-Nahuelpan, Mauricio
  last_name: Toro-Nahuelpan
- first_name: Lena M.
  full_name: Fischer, Lena M.
  last_name: Fischer
- first_name: Qin
  full_name: Yu, Qin
  last_name: Yu
- first_name: Ewa
  full_name: Sitarska, Ewa
  last_name: Sitarska
- first_name: Chii Jou
  full_name: Chan, Chii Jou
  last_name: Chan
- first_name: Jan
  full_name: Kosinski, Jan
  last_name: Kosinski
- first_name: Matthieu
  full_name: Piel, Matthieu
  last_name: Piel
- first_name: Olivia
  full_name: Du Roure, Olivia
  last_name: Du Roure
- first_name: Julien
  full_name: Heuvingh, Julien
  last_name: Heuvingh
- first_name: Julia
  full_name: Mahamid, Julia
  last_name: Mahamid
- first_name: Alba
  full_name: Diz-Muñoz, Alba
  last_name: Diz-Muñoz
citation:
  ama: Strauss L, Lembo S, Gérard SF, et al. The membrane-to-cortex distance regulates
    mDia1 activity to control cortical mechanics. <i>Nature Communications</i>. 2026;17.
    doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3">10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3</a>
  apa: Strauss, L., Lembo, S., Gérard, S. F., Siggel, M., Cheng, D., Bergert, M.,
    … Diz-Muñoz, A. (2026). The membrane-to-cortex distance regulates mDia1 activity
    to control cortical mechanics. <i>Nature Communications</i>. Springer Nature.
    <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3</a>
  chicago: Strauss, Léanne, Sergio Lembo, Samuel F. Gérard, Marc Siggel, Dorothy Cheng,
    Martin Bergert, Sarah K. Foster, et al. “The Membrane-to-Cortex Distance Regulates
    MDia1 Activity to Control Cortical Mechanics.” <i>Nature Communications</i>. Springer
    Nature, 2026. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3</a>.
  ieee: L. Strauss <i>et al.</i>, “The membrane-to-cortex distance regulates mDia1
    activity to control cortical mechanics,” <i>Nature Communications</i>, vol. 17.
    Springer Nature, 2026.
  ista: Strauss L, Lembo S, Gérard SF, Siggel M, Cheng D, Bergert M, Foster SK, Vermeil
    J, Toro-Nahuelpan M, Fischer LM, Yu Q, Sitarska E, Chan CJ, Kosinski J, Piel M,
    Du Roure O, Heuvingh J, Mahamid J, Diz-Muñoz A. 2026. The membrane-to-cortex distance
    regulates mDia1 activity to control cortical mechanics. Nature Communications.
    17, 9501.
  mla: Strauss, Léanne, et al. “The Membrane-to-Cortex Distance Regulates MDia1 Activity
    to Control Cortical Mechanics.” <i>Nature Communications</i>, vol. 17, 9501, Springer
    Nature, 2026, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3">10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3</a>.
  short: L. Strauss, S. Lembo, S.F. Gérard, M. Siggel, D. Cheng, M. Bergert, S.K.
    Foster, J. Vermeil, M. Toro-Nahuelpan, L.M. Fischer, Q. Yu, E. Sitarska, C.J.
    Chan, J. Kosinski, M. Piel, O. Du Roure, J. Heuvingh, J. Mahamid, A. Diz-Muñoz,
    Nature Communications 17 (2026).
corr_author: '1'
das_tickbox: '1'
dataavailabilitystatement: "The dataset for the analysis of cortical actin and p-myosin
  in fixed cells, as well as actin and myosin−2 in live cells can be found together
  with the corresponding Fiji macro for immunofluorescence quantification in the Biostudies
  database (accession number S-BIAD2611).\r\n\r\nAll raw frames, tilt series, metadata,
  tomograms and segmentations generated for this work are deposited in the Electron
  Microscopy Public Image Archive (EMPIAR)118 under accession code EMPIAR-13326. A
  representative tomogram associated with this entry is available in the Electron
  Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB)119 under entry EMD-56367.\r\n\r\nThe experimental imaging
  data for the filopodia analysis, the used Spotiflow model with corresponding training
  data and example datasets are available in the BioStudies database (accession number
  S-BIAD2611).\r\n\r\nRaw numbers for plots presented in this paper as well as western
  blot images are available in the Source Data. All other data and unique reagents
  that support this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.
  Source data are provided in this paper. Source data are provided with this paper.\r\nThe
  code used for cortex analysis from binary segmentations obtained during cryo-ET
  data processing is available on GitHub with the following link: https://github.com/MahamidLab/actin_cortex_analysis/tree/revision.\r\n\r\nThe
  Napari plugin for reviewing and manually correct spot detections used in the filopodia
  analysis is available at GitHub with the following link: https://github.com/diz-lab/filospot."
date_created: 2026-09-13T22:01:51Z
date_published: 2026-09-04T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-09-15T12:58:06Z
day: '04'
ddc:
- '570'
department:
- _id: MiSi
doi: 10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3
external_id:
  pmid:
  - '42697882'
file:
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fulldoi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72845-3
has_accepted_license: '1'
intvolume: '        17'
language:
- iso: eng
month: '09'
oa: 1
oa_version: Published Version
pmid: 1
publication: Nature Communications
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 2041-1723
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
researchdata_availability: yes
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
supplementarymaterial: yes
title: The membrane-to-cortex distance regulates mDia1 activity to control cortical
  mechanics
tmp:
  image: /images/cc_by.png
  legal_code_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
  name: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)
  short: CC BY (4.0)
type: journal_article
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
volume: 17
year: '2026'
...