ERK activation waves coordinate mechanical cell competition leading to collective onslaught of bacterially-infected cells

In this study, we investigated how biochemical signaling, and in particular extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activity waves, coordinate the mechanical battle between Listeria monocytogenes infected and surrounder uninfected epithelial cells. We explored the collective infected cell extrusion using live-cell imaging, proteomics, atomic force microscopy (AFM), traction force microscopy (TFM) and additional approaches.