Vinculin is an essential and highly conserved cell adhesion protein, found at both focal
adhesions and adherens junctions, where it couples integrins or cadherins to the actin
cytoskeleton. Vinculin is involved in controlling cell shape, motility, and cell survival, and has
more recently been shown to play a role in force transduction. The tail domain of vinculin (Vt)
contains determinants necessary for binding and bundling of actin filaments. Actin binding to
Vt has been proposed to induce formation of a Vt dimer that is necessary for cross-linking …