Emerging role of Paxillin-PKL in regulation of cell adhesion,polarity and migration

Cell adhesion and motility is of fundamental importance during development, normal physiology and pathologic conditions such as tumor metastasis. Focal adhesion (FA) proteins and their dynamic interactions play a critical role in the regulation of directed cell migration upon extracellular guidance cues. Using a combination of pharmacological inhibitors, knockout and knockdown cells, dominant negative and constitutively active mutants, we recently reported that the dynamic interaction and balancing phosphorylation of paxillin-PKL(GIT2) complex were critical for the cell polarity, thus directional migration upon cell adhesion and growth factor signaling. Similarly, restricted regulation of Arf6 and Rho families GTPase activities in polarized migrating cells is implicated in recent studies using cell culture and in vivo models.