Cell adhesion, spreading, and migration are inseparable features of many biological and pathological processes, including normal development, angiogenesis, wound repair, tumor invasion, and metastasis. The process of cell adhesion and the subsequent spreading and migration on the extracellular matrix involves dynamic changes in the cytoskeleton through the action of integrins, which transduce signals from the outside to the inside of the cell and vice versa (1, 2).Integrins are heterodimeric transmembrane cell adhesion molecules comprising ␣ and  subunits (3). As receptors for the extracellular matrix, integrins play important roles in mediating the signals from the extracellular matrix (4). The signals propagated by extracellular matrix-integrin interactions result in the activation of a number of signaling pathways (5). These pathways include protein tyrosine kinases, such as focal adhesion kinase (FAK) 3 (6), and members of the Rho family of small GTP-binding proteins, such as Cdc42, Rac1, and RhoA (7), which play important roles in regulating the organization of the cytoskeleton. Activated FAK and Rho-GTPase regulate cell adhesion, spreading, and migration (8, 9).One important feature of integrins is that they can shift between low-and high-affinity conformations for ligand binding. The shift from a low-to a high-affinity state is termed "integrin activation" (10). Because altered integrin activation is associated with many diseases, such as bleeding disorders, leukocyte adhesion deficiencies, and skin blistering, integrin activation has to be controlled stringently (11). It was originally thought that talin is the only master regulator of integrin activation (12). Later works have shown that the kindlin family of proteins is as important as talin in mediating integrin function (13,14). Both talin and kindlins belong to a family of evolutionarily conserved FERM (four-point-one, ezrin, radixin, moesin) domain-containing proteins (15). They regulate integrin function by binding directly to the cytoplasmic tail of integrin via their FERM domain, which triggers a conformational change in the extracellular ligand-binding domain, increasing its affinity for its ligand (10, 16). These findings suggest that other FERM domain-containing proteins may also associate with integrin and regulate integrin function.Protein 4.1 family members (which includes 4.1R, 4.1B, 4.1G, and 4.1N) are the prototypical members of the FERM domaincontaining superfamily of proteins. We have shown recently that 4.1R binds to 1 integrin and modulates the surface expression of 1 integrin in keratinocytes (17). A study by McCarty et al. (18) has also documented the association of 4.1B with 8 integrin in cultured astrocytes and in the brain. In this study, we identified a novel role of 4.1G in cell adhesion, spreading, and migration of mouse embryonic fibroblasts by modulating the surface expression of 1 integrin through a direct association between 4.1G and 1 integrin.