N-cadherin induction by ECM stiffness and FAK overrides the spreading requirement for proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells

In contrast to the accepted pro-proliferative effect of cell-matrix adhesion, the proliferative effect of cadherin-mediated cell-cell adhesion remains unresolved. Here, we studied the effect of N-cadherin on cell proliferation in the vasculature. We show that N-cadherin is induced in smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in response to vascular injury, an invivo model of tissue stiffening and proliferation. Complementary experiments performed with deformable substrata demonstrated that stiffness-mediated activation of a focal adhesion kinase (FAK)-p130Cas-Rac signaling pathway induces N-cadherin. Additionally, by culturing paired and unpaired SMCs on microfabricated adhesive islands of different areas, we found that N-cadherin relaxes the spreading requirement for SMC proliferation. Invivo SMC deletion of N-cadherin strongly reduced injury-induced cycling. Finally, SMC-specific deletion of FAK inhibited proliferation after vascular injury, and this was accompanied by reduced induction of N-cadherin. Thus, a stiffness- and FAK-dependent induction of N-cadherin connects cell-matrix to cell-cell adhesion and regulates the degree of cell spreading needed for cycling.