Authors: Kasia Kozyrska, Giulia Pilia, Medhavi Vishwakarma, Laura Wagstaff, Maja Goschorska, Silvia Cirillo, Saad Mohamad, Kelli Gallacher, Rafael E. Carazo Salas, Eugenia Piddini
Published: 2022-02-10
Source: Full article
Epithelial cells migrate across wounds to repair injured tissue. Leader cells at the front of migrating sheets often drive this process. However, it is unclear how leaders emerge from an apparently homogeneous epithelial cell population. We characterized leaders emerging from epithelial monolayers in cell culture and found that they activated the stress sensor p53, which was sufficient to initiate leader cell behavior. p53 activated the cell cycle inhibitor p21