
Ronen ZAIDEL-BAR
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
Laboratory website
Zaidel-Bar Cell Adhesion Lab
Seeking Research Assistant in the lab of Dr. Anne Beghin at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS
We are seeking a Research Assistant to join the lab of Dr. Anne Beghin at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS
Zheng Kexiao
Research Associate, Yu Group
Derek Yuen Yee Jun
Research Assistant, Bershadsky Group
Lab Meeting with the Chan Lab – the Node
The Chan Lab sits down with the Node for to chat about lab life (read here)!
Defining the pattern of cell death and replacement
Researchers from the Toyama Lab at MBI reveal how mechanical factors control apoptosis and cell replacement. https://www.mbi.nus.edu.sg/featured-research/defining-the-pattern-of-cell-death-and-replacement
The Chan lab celebrates two new papers!
Congratulations to the teams! (Read the publication here and the preprint here)
Ronen Zaidel-Bar
Visiting Faculty
Currently Visting
6-12 Nov 2018
Office: T-Lab, Level 5
Research Areas
Cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion, Regulation of actomyosin contractility and dynamics, C. elegans development, mechanics and molecular mechanisms of morphogenesis
Research Interests
- How do specific cytoskeletal proteins contribute to the organization and function of cell adhesion and actomyosin structures?
- How are signals processed within the “adhesome” and “contractome” to arrive at the appropriate cytoskeletal arrangement for a given cell state?
- How do adhesion sites and the cytoskeleton sense and respond to external mechanical forces?
Biography
Dr Zaidel-Bar obtained his Ph.D. working with Prof Benny Geiger (Weizmann Institute of Science) on the role of force in regulating cell-matrix adhesions. Their work first focused on single proteins and evolved to encompass the entire adhesome network. In his Postdoctoral training with Prof Jeff Hardin (University of Wisconsin – Madison) Dr Zaidel-Bar switched from studying cells in culture to employing the genetic model organism C. elegans for the study of cell-cell adhesions during development. Dr Zaidel-Bar was attracted to Singapore by the opening of MBI and was awarded the Singapore National Research Foundation Fellowship for promising young investigators.
Education
PhD Weizmann Institute of Science
Recent Publications
- Bertocchi C, Alegría JJ, Vásquez-Sepúlveda S, Ibanez-Prat R, Srinivasan A, Arrano-Valenzuela I, Castro-Pereira B, Soto-Montandon C, Trujillo-Espergel A, Montenegro-Rojas I, Deguchi S, Owen GI, Kanchanawong P, Cerda M, Motta G, Zaidel-Bar R, and Ravasio A. Systematic AI-assisted screening of the cadhesome to map epithelial monolayer mechanics. Cell Commun Signal 2026;. [PMID: 42399739]
- Ray S, Agarwal P, Nitzan A, Nédélec F, and Zaidel-Bar R. Actin capping protein regulates actomyosin contractility to maintain germline architecture in C. elegans. Development 2023;. [PMID: 36897576]
- Avivi Kela S, Sethi K, Tan PY, Suresh D, Ong HT, Castaneda PG, Amin MR, Laviv T, Cram EJ, Faix J, and Zaidel-Bar R. Tension-dependent RHGF-1 recruitment to stress fibers drives robust spermathecal tissue contraction. J Cell Biol 2022; 222(2). [PMID: 36574264]
- Chen Z, Oh D, Biswas KH, Zaidel-Bar R, and Groves JT. Probing the effect of clustering on EphA2 receptor signaling efficiency by subcellular control of ligand-receptor mobility. Elife 2021; 10. [PMID: 34414885]
- Hu S, Grobe H, Guo Z, Wang Y, Doss BL, Pan M, Ladoux B, Bershadsky AD, and Zaidel-Bar R. Reciprocal regulation of actomyosin organization and contractility in non-muscle cells by tropomyosins and alpha-actinins. Mol. Biol. Cell 2019;:mbcE19020082. [PMID: 31216217]
- Desai SK, Padmanabhan A, Harshe S, Zaidel-Bar R, and Kenney LJ. Salmonella biofilms program innate immunity for persistence in Caenorhabditis elegans. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2019;. [PMID: 31160462]
- Bouffard J, Cecchetelli AD, Clifford C, Sethi K, Zaidel-Bar R, and Cram EJ. The RhoGAP SPV-1 regulates calcium signaling to control the contractility of the C. elegans spermatheca during embryo transits. Mol. Biol. Cell 2019;:mbcE18100633. [PMID: 30726159]
- Priti A, Ong HT, Toyama Y, Padmanabhan A, Dasgupta S, Krajnc M, and Zaidel-Bar R. Syncytial germline architecture is actively maintained by contraction of an internal actomyosin corset. Nat Commun 2018; 9(1):4694. [PMID: 30410005]
- Agarwal P, and Zaidel-Bar R. Principles of Actomyosin Regulation In Vivo. Trends Cell Biol. 2018;. [PMID: 30385150]
- Chen Z, Oh D, Biswas KH, Yu C, Zaidel-Bar R, and Groves JT. Spatially modulated ephrinA1:EphA2 signaling increases local contractility and global focal adhesion dynamics to promote cell motility. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2018;. [PMID: 29866846]
Lab Members
What is membrane curvature?
What is membrane curvature? Membrane curvature refers to the physical bending of membranes to accommodate various cell morphology changes as well as the formation of membrane-bound transport intermediates like spherical vesicles or tubules. As [...]
What is Membrane Trafficking?
What is Membrane Trafficking? Membrane trafficking encompasses the wide variety of processes that go into the movement of cargo (typically proteins, pathogens and other macromolecules) using membrane bound transport vesicles. This transport can take [...]
What is caveolar endocytosis?
What is caveolar endocytosis? Caveolar endocytosis is a clathrin-independent endocytic process which involves bulb-shaped, 50-60nm plasma membrane invaginations called caveolae (or ‘little caves’). Caveolae formation is driven by integral membrane proteins called caveolins as [...]
What is clathrin-mediated endocytosis?
What is clathrin-mediated endocytosis? Clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) is a vesicular transport event that facilitates the internalization and recycling of receptors engaged in a variety of processes, including signal transduction (G-protein and tyrosine kinase receptors), [...]
How is clathrin recruited to the plasma membrane?
How is clathrin recruited to the plasma membrane? Clathrin-mediated endocytosis is triggered by phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) accumulation within the plasma membrane. PIP2 accumulates as a result of phosphoinositide catalysis by the lipid kinases, phosphatidylinositol-4-kinase (PI4K) [...]
How does the clathrin coated pit form?
How does the clathrin coated pit form? Adaptor proteins such as AP-2, AP180 and CALM (Clathrin-assembly lymphoid myeloid leukaemia protein), which accumulate within the lipid bilayer, are responsible for the recruitment of the triskelion [...]
How does invagination and maturation of the clathrin-coated vesicle occur?
How does invagination and maturation of the clathrin-coated vesicle occur? Clathrin-coated vesicle maturation incorporates the activities of a range of proteins. Actin, myosin and WASP all have important roles in the formation and stabilization [...]
How does the clathrin-coated vesicle neck narrow?
How does the clathrin-coated vesicle neck narrow? In the final stages of clathrin-coated vesicle (CCV) formation, Phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) undergoes a dephosphorylation by phosphatases such as synaptojanin 1 (Synj1) [1]. Not only does this inhibit [...]
What is exocytosis?
What is exocytosis? Exocytosis is defined as the transport and fusion of secretory vesicles with the plasma membrane and the extracellular space. There are three exocytosis pathways that deliver vesicles to the plasma membrane. [...]
What is Fast Endophilin-Mediated Endocytosis (FEME)?
What is Fast Endophilin-Mediated Endocytosis (FEME)? FEME is a novel clathrin-independent endocytic pathway, regulated by the BAR domain protein endophilin, where tubulo-vesicular carriers form within seconds at the plasma membrane upon activation of specific [...]
What is flotillin-associated endocytosis?
What is flotillin-associated endocytosis? Flotillins, which are proteins that localize to specific microdomains or lipid rafts in the plasma membrane, mediate a clathrin-independent endocytosis pathway that is regulated by the Src family tyrosine kinase [...]
How are clathrin-coated vesicles uncoated?
How are clathrin-coated vesicles uncoated? Uncoating is the process by which clathrin is removed from clathrin-coated vesicles (CCVs). In mammals, this ATP dependent process is driven by the 70kDa molecular chaperone ‘Heat shock cognate [...]

