Morphological and cytoskeleton changes in cells after EMT

Epithelial cells undergoing EMT experience significant alterations at transcriptional and morphological levels. However, changes in the cytoskeleton, especially cytoskeleton dynamics are poorly described. Addressing the question we induced EMT in three cell lines (MCF-7, HaCaT and A-549) and analyzed morphological and cytoskeletal changes there using immunostaining and life cell imaging of cells transfected with microtubule and focal adhesion markers. In all studied cell lines, cell area after EMT increased, MCF-7 and A-549 cells became elongated, while HaCaT cells kept the aspect ratio the same. We next analyzed three components of the cytoskeleton: microtubules, stress fibers and focal adhesions. The following changes were observed after EMT in cultured cells: (i) Organization of microtubules becomes more radial; and the growth rate of microtubule plus ends was accelerated; (ii) Actin stress fibers become co-aligned forming the longitudinal cell axis; and (iii) Focal adhesions had decreased area in all cancer cell lines studied and became more numerous in HaCaT cells. We conclude that among dynamic components of the cytoskeleton, the most significant changes during EMT happen in the regulation of microtubules.