PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Andrea Ghisleni AU - Camilla Galli AU - Pascale Monzo AU - Flora Ascione AU - Marc-Antoine Fardin AU - Giorgio Scita AU - Qingsen Li AU - Paolo Maiuri AU - Nils Gauthier TI - Mesoscale Dynamics of Spectrin and Acto-Myosin shape Membrane Territories during Mechanoresponse AID - 10.1101/872465 DP - 2019 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 872465 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/12/11/872465.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/12/11/872465.full AB - The spectrin cytoskeleton is a major component of the cell cortex. While ubiquitously expressed, its dynamic interaction with the other cortex components, including the plasma membrane or the acto-myosin cytoskeleton, is poorly understood. Here, we investigated how the spectrin cytoskeleton re-organizes spatially and dynamically under the membrane during changes in cell mechanics. We found spectrin and acto-myosin cytoskeletons to be spatially distinct but cooperating during mechanical challenges, such as cell adhesion and contraction, or compression, stretch and osmolarity fluctuations, creating a cohesive cortex supporting the plasma membrane. Actin territories control protrusions and contractile structures while spectrin territories concentrate in retractile zones and low-actin density/inter-contractile regions, acting as a fence to organize membrane trafficking events. We unveil here the existence of a dynamic interplay between acto-myosin and spectrin cytoskeletons necessary to support a mesoscale organization of the lipid bilayer into spatially-confined cortical territories during cell mechanoresponse.