Buckle up: Membrane tension drives lamellipodial network compression and adhesion deposition

Whether to spread on a surface or to crawl, cells must apply traction forces to the underlying substrate via adhesion complexes. In this issue, Pontes et al. (2017. J. Cell Biol. https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201611117) shed new light on how the interplay among membrane tension, the lamellipodial actin network, and adhesions coordinate the dynamics of spreading fibroblasts.