ECM signals ECM degradation

When Caroline Damsky moved her lab to the University of California, San Francisco, in 1985, she knew she would have an instant colleague in Zena Werb. There was a natural connection between their work. That connection would be reflected in their discoveries, which delineated an integrin-mediated pathway from the extracellular matrix (ECM) outside the cell to the internal, gene-expressing life of the cell.

Werb and Damsky's interests—metalloproteinase (MMP) gene expression and adhesion receptor antibodies—were both correlated with changes in cell shape and the actin cytoskeleton. Some dismissed the shape changes as simple, physical responses to a changing attachment environment, with no need to invoke signaling, but the two wondered if there was something more. “Were the cells getting signals from the ECM that could affect [protease] gene expression?” asks Damsky. “Zena was the doyenne...