The skin is the largest organ in the human body and serves, among other things, to protect against physical injury. To provide such protection, skin cells must be tightly connected to each other. However, it was long unclear exactly how such mechanical stability is achieved. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry together with researchers from Stanford University (USA) have now been able to show how mechanical stress is processed at special cell anchoring points known as desmosomes. For this purpose, they developed a miniature device to measure forces across individual proteins within desmosomes. In the study published in
Nature Communications, they use technology to show how mechanical forces are processed at these anchoring points.
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