Vinculin is located at the cytoplasmic side of focal contacts or adhesion plaques.

In some regions of the basement membrane, adhesion plaques composed of fibronectin can be found.

These focal adhesion plaques are highly dynamic in nature and undergo a maturation process through which they have altered functionality and protein content.

It is usually associated with polarized actin filaments in membrane ruffles, filopodia, stereocilia and adhesion plaques.

They can appear as bands encircling the cell (zonula adherens) or as spots of attachment to the extracellular matrix (adhesion plaques).

Spot-like adherens junctions help cells adhere to extracellular matrix both in vivo and in vitro where they are called adhesion plaques.

In mammalian cells, vinculin is a membrane-cytoskeletal protein in focal adhesion plaques that is involved in linkage of integrin adhesion molecules to the actin cytoskeleton.

It seems likely that this is due to the more minimalist culture conditions used in the present study - younger cells, plated on clean glass coverslips, lacking in extensive adhesion plaques and presumably endowed with a less stratified cytoskeleton.