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SENSOCELL to study mechanical properties of neurons during C. elegans locomotion

SENSOCELL to study mechanical properties of neurons during C. elegans locomotion

How mechanical properties of neurons regulate proprioception during C. elegans locomotion:

 

This 2021 starts with a new preprint available from the Neurophotonics & Mechanical Systems Biology group  at ICFO whose main research goal is to understand cell mechanical properties for health and disease on the molecular and systems level using Caenorhabditis (C.) elegans.

In this work entitled “Mechanical Stretch Inhibition Sensitizes Proprioceptors to Compressive Stresses”, the authors study how mechanical properties of neurons regulate proprioception during C. elegans locomotion.

In particular, they investigate the mechanics, molecules and neurons responsible for proprioception in C. elegans to gain insight into how mechanosensation shapes the orbital trajectory to a well-defined limit cycle.

For this research they used our SENSOCELL optical tweezers platform in combination with spinning-disk confocal microscopy to study neuron Ca2+ dynamics during axon membrane tether extrusion experiments.

You can have a look at the details of the results and conclusions here.

Enjoy the reading!

Congratulations to the authors !

 

📌If you want to know more about the capabilities of the SENSOCELL and how they can push your research, do not hesitate to contact us.

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Fig. 1

Time dependence of trap position (top), force signal (middle) and Ca2+ fluorescence signal (bottom) recorded during a membrane tether pulling experiment. The force and Ca2+ ion channel activity signals exhibit negative correlation.

Fig. 2

Force and displacement data for two beads stimulated at frequencies of 4 Hz and 0.25 Hz. The progressive reduction of the beads displacement is in concomitancy with an increase of the applied force and loading rate.

Fig. 1

Schematic representation of the optical tweezers experiment. A fibronectin-coated bead is trapped, brought into contact with the cell membrane and stimulated with oscillations at different frequencies.

Fig.2

Time dependence of trap 1 and trap 2 position (top) and force (bottom) data along the different steps of the described dual tether pulling experiment.

Fig.1

Confocal video of the described dual tether pulling assay performed on a neuron axon. Courtesy of M. Krieg lab (ICFO).

Fig. 1

Time dependence of trap position (top), force signal (middle) and Ca2+ fluorescence signal (bottom) recorded during a membrane tether pulling experiment. The force and Ca2+ ion channel activity signals exhibit negative correlation.

Video 1

Confocal video showing a DVA neuron Ca2+ ion channel activity in a dynamic optical trapping assay. The pulling rate applied to the membrane tether is progressively increased. Scale bar = 5µm. Acquired at 10Hz.