Cortactin: Coordinating adhesion and the actin cytoskeleton at cellular protrusions

It has long been recognized that adhesion receptors cooperate with the cytoskeleton during morphogenesis, tissue remodeling and homeostasis. But how this occurs is less well-understood. A host of cytoskeletal regulators have been reported to have functional and biochemical linkage with adhesion receptors. The challenge remains to find functionally-coherent patterns within this increasingly large corpus of molecular information. In this review we discuss one approach, to identify distinctive functional modules that contribute to different adhesive processes. We illustrate this by considering Arp2/3-driven surface protrusion, which is utilized at both integrin-based cell-matrix adhesions and cadherin-based cell-cell adhesions. We further argue that regulatory proteins, such as cortactin, serve to coordinate the molecular components of this protrusive apparatus into a cohesive module.