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How SENSOCELL offers the possibility to address fundamental questions about the mechanobiology of cells

How SENSOCELL offers the possibility to address fundamental questions about the mechanobiology of cells

SENSOCELL is the ideal tool to bring mechanobiology and force measurements into animal model systems, such as C. elegans, Drosophila or Zebrafish.

Dr. Michael Krieg leads the Neurophotonics and Mechanical Systems Biology group at the Institute of Photonics Sciences (ICFO) in Barcelona. After a 6-year postdoc at Stanford University, Dr. Krieg landed at ICFO in 2017 with a Starting Grant from the ERC. During his career, Dr. Krieg has mainly focused in the use of AFM to study the mechanics of cells, with a particular interest in mechanosensation and -transduction.

With the help of a FEDER grant, Dr. Krieg’s lab co-funded a SENSOCELL optical tweezers system from IMPETUX integrated with spinning disk confocal microscopy. The combination of these two modalities is unique and sparks many different collaborations between biologists, microscopists and physicists from many different institutes.

The unique force measuring capabilities of SENSOCELL offer Dr. Krieg the possibility to address fundamental questions about the mechanobiology of cells. In a recent research [1], his group has shown the potential of IMPETUX’s technology to characterize the mechanical properties of nuclei inside suspended and confined cells. The flexibility of system is also key in the cell membrane tension experiments carried out by the group, where they study the interplay between mechanical forces and calcium signalling in neurons.

When asked about the SENSOCELL, Dr. Krieg says: “With the optical sectioning capacity of the spinning disk confocal and the ability to measure forces readily inside living cells and animals, this instrument is the ideal tool to bring mechanobiology and force measurements into animal model systems, such as C. elegans, Drosophila or Zebrafish.”

Useful links

Cell membrane forces application webpage

Nucleus mechanics webpage

livinglight.icfo.eu

 

References

[1] V. Venturi, F. Pezzano, F. Català-Castro, H.- M. Häkkinen, S. Jiménez-Delgado, M. Colomer-Rosell, M. Marro-Sánchez, Q. Tolosa-Ramon, S. Paz-López, M. A. Valverde, P. Loza-Alvarez, M. Krieg, S. Wieser and V. Ruprecht, “The nucleus measures shape changes for cellular proprioception to control dynamic cell behavior” SCIENCE | 16 Oct 2020: Vol. 370, Issue 6514, eaba2644. DOI: 10.1126/science.aba2644

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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.