Cells’ skeleton can contract so that cells can move, divide, establish shape, and maintain tissues. How that contractility, induced by myosin, changes in response to the cells’ architecture and biochemistry is not well understood. Using micropatterning of actin, Hajer Ennomani, Gaëlle Letort, and colleagues in the labs of ASCB members Manuel Théry and Laurent Blanchoin at the Biosciences & Biotechnology Institute of Grenoble in France found that cross-linkers enhance or inhibit the contractility of an actin/myosin network. Their work shows that it is possible to predict how defined actin structures will respond to changes in connectivity. Published in Current Biology.