iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Kate Cavanaugh @katecavanaugh.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Absolutely ecstatic to share that WE GOT THE COVER!!! 🥹🎉 Seeing this on NCB's cover feels surreal. So much time, science, and teamwork went into this project, and I couldn’t be more excited to see it celebrated like this. A very, very happy day for this really really old and grown embryo 🐭🧫💥

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

@myosincity.bsky.social and I are looking to hire a new postdoc this winter! Open to anyone broadly interested in studying how cells generate and interpret mechanical signals. Interested applicants can reach out to me and Jordan directly.

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Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Maggie Utgaard @maggieutgaard.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

So excited to share the preprint with the bulk of my PhD work in the Beach @myosincity.bsky.social and Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social Labs at Loyola University Chicago! We investigate the structure, recruitment, and function of septin networks around the nucleus. A thread: doi.org/10.64898/202...

doi.org

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Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Elias Spiliotis @septinlab.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Two new 🔥pre-prints 🔥 TODAY by us & @pwoakes.bsky.social @myosincity.bsky.social change the way we think about the septin cytoskeleton Septins buffer mechanical stress on actin and membranes! Septins are like intermediate filaments www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

media.tenor.com

a woman in a suit and tie has the words wait what written on her face

ALT: a woman in a suit and tie has the words wait what written on her face

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Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Kate Cavanaugh @katecavanaugh.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

See this? This = implanting mouse embryo. Usually this happens inside its mother and is invisible to us, but we can actually watch implantation ex vivo with the hope of understanding why implantation goes awry in embryos of older women. A 🧵...

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Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Garcia-Mata Lab @rhopower.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

We are getting closer to Toledo CellulART 2025! Please register early if you would like to be considered for a talk! More at www.toledocellulart.org

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Tension on vinculin does change in response to Y27 treatment, which alters both network tension AND actin architecture. This highlights how molecular tension doesn't always directly correlate with network tension and has big implications on how to interpret data from other molecular biosensors.

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Our data also highlights the difference between molecular tension (as on vinculin) and network tension (i.e. traction stresses) in adhesions. Zyxin is sensitive to changes in tension on the adhesion, while vinculin isn't.

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

We think this same process is happening with other tension sensitive LIM domain proteins in adhesions too, like paxillin, LIMD1, and Trip6. They're all recognizing to different degrees the strained actin in adhesions, and contributing to signaling in these structures.

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Putting this all together, our data suggests that zyxin is performing the same roles in strain sites as in FAs - it's helping to build a stress fiber while it's under tension by recognizing strained actin filaments

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

To test this we looked at how VASP responds to our laser ablation in WT and zyxin KO MEFs. We only saw a change in VASP intensity at the FA when zyxin was present! We also measured retrograde flow of actin at FAs and found that it was slower in the zyxin KO cells!

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Now zyxin is known to play a key role in stress fiber repair (PMID: 20833360). It recognizes strained actin in stress fibers, recruits VASP to help polymerize new actin filaments, and alpha-actinin to crosslink them in place. Could zyxin be doing the same things in FAs?

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

If we looked at cell-cell adhesions we saw the exact same thing! Both Trip6 and LIMD1, tension sensitive LIM domain proteins, showed sudden large drops in intensity in response to changes in tension on the adhesion.

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

So we next looked at other FA proteins, including paxillin, kindlin2, and PINCH. Only paxillin, another tension sensitive LIM domain protein showed changes in response to drops in tension!

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Vinculin clearly stretches in response to forces though (PMID: 20613844), so we looked at molecular tension using the VinTS tension sensor. Shockingly it also was unperturbed by the change in tension on the adhesion, but it did change in response to Y-27 (ROCK inh.)

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

We took the same optogenetic approach and saw the same results. Vinculin intensity in FAs was completely unresponsive to changes in traction stresses!

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

We next tried the same experiments with vinculin, a known mechanosensitive FA protein. What we found was a total surprise - while zyxin was responsive to changes in tension, vinculin accumulation was completely unchanged!

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

We then used an optogenetic RhoA probe to modulate tension in the cell. We identified FAs where forces increased, remained stable, or decreased and looked at what happened to zyxin intensity. The responses were perfectly coordinated!

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

We used a laser to damage a stress fiber (SF) upstream of an adhesion and see what happened to zyxin at the adhesion. We saw both zyxin intensity and traction stresses drop immediately in response to the laser ablation.

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

This machine learning model also directly predicted a relationship between zyxin intensity and traction stress on the focal adhesion (FA). Stefano set out to explicitly test this prediction.

The ML model predicts that zyxin intensity increases in adhesions with FA tension

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

The literature on the relationship between traction stress and adhesion composition/morphology has been mixed. Recently, we built a neural network to predict traction stresses from images of adhesions and the best predictions came from the FA protein zyxin www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

cell.com

Machine learning interpretable models of cell mechanics from protein images

Image-based deep learning approaches can predict the mechanical behavior of cells from experimental images of a single focal adhesion protein. These generalizable models of cellular forces can be used...

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

A big shout out to @septinlab.bsky.social for organizing an awesome septin meeting this past week. It was great to catch up in person with so many of the people in this amazing community and meet so many new people working on septins! #SeptSRC

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Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Elias Spiliotis @septinlab.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

@maggieutgaard.bsky.social from @pwoakes.bsky.social and @myosincity.bsky.social labs with a killer talk on the coupling of the nucleus to septins in response to mechanical stress. #SeptSRC

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Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Elias Spiliotis @septinlab.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

5 days left to register at discounted rate, and 3 weeks left from Sunday for FASEB - Septins: spatial regulators of cell biology. An exciting program of over 50 talks. Daily meet the speakers luncheons/dinners Career development sessions Poster prizes & a killer dance party mix in the making!?!

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Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Swaminathan Lab @swaminathanlab.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

The feeling when you get back to the lab after a week at a gordon conference - totally inspired and energised after hearing incredible science and meeting amazing people. Thank you @tanentzapflab.bsky.social and @sarawickstrom.bsky.social for GRC Fibronectin, Integrins and related molecules.

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Amazed Inspired GIF

Alt: Amazed Inspired GIF

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Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Elias Spiliotis @septinlab.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

LAST CALL for FASEB Septins - Spatial Regulators of Cell Biology June 15-19, Niagara Falls, New York Register now: events.faseb.org/event/septin... Submit abstract by Monday or DM me after that. 80 participants and counting cant be wrong!

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Always fun to write about excellent work. Congrats on the paper!

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Reposted by Patrick Oakes

Volodya Gelfand; Northwestern University @vgelfand.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

The Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Feinberg School of Medicine seeks a full-time tenure track Investigator at the rank of Assistant Professor. Click here to learn more. www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/sites/cdb/do... For questions, contact Vanessa Gonzalez vanessa.g@northwestern.edu

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

It'll be a slightly smaller crew than previous years but we'll still be at #cellbio24 #ASCB! If you like LIM proteins or septins come check out our posters:

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

There are some good local RhoA activation movies in one of our old papers for this pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28604737/ this is myosin being recruited

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

So many stunning images in this group! Vote for your favorite!

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Stay tuned! We’ve got something on this in the works - septins will have their day 😃

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

From the archive - integrins and actin. I never get tired of looking at the cytoskeleton!

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Patrick Oakes @pwoakes.bsky.social · 02/12/2023

We have a bunch of posters at the ASCB meeting in Boston for those that are around. Come check out everything we’ve been working on!

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