Dynamics of integrin-immediated signaling via FAK and ERK2

Integrin-mediated signaling via focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and extracellular-signal regulated kinase 2 (ERK2) was quantified in response to modulating α5β1 integrin interaction with its fibronectin ligand. First, the dynamics of the ERK2 and FAK response were analyzed (a) to determine the dependence of each signals´ kinetics on integrin-ligand bond number, (b) to gather insight into the activation and deactivation mechanisms regulating the ERK2 signal, and (c) to ascertain the disparate mechanisms that yield divergent ERK2 and FAK time-courses despite their shared integrin-ligand stimulus. Second, metrics were proposed for representing these dynamic signals with distinct time-courses. These metrics quantitatively correlated to integrin-ligand bond number and also were related to their downstream effect on cell proliferation