Connecting cell adhesion to the actin polymerization machinery: vinculin as the missing link?

Cell migration is essential to many physiological and pathological processes such as embryogenesis, wound healing or metastasis. This complex process involves a tight coordination between three essential steps - protrusion, adhesion and retraction. Although historically protrusion and adhesion have been linked through structural protein-protein interactions, a direct functional link between the two has long eluded biologists. Recent work from the Burridge laboratory now suggests that vinculin, a cytoskeletal protein involved in the building of the adhesion scaffold, could be the missing link that connects early adhesion sites to the actin-driven protrusive machinery.