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WEBINAR | Light as a tool for mechanobiology, with Dr Krieg from ICFO

WEBINAR | Light as a tool for mechanobiology, with Dr Krieg from ICFO

Join us for the webinar: Light as a tool for mechanobiology-Introducing SENSOCELL optical tweezers

📅DATE: March 24, 2021 | 4 PM CET  | ONLINE

If you are interested in new cutting edge mechanobiology technology  can’t miss the webinar series organized by ‎Massimo Vassalli  from the Cellular Mechanobiology Lab at the University of Glasgow and N4M:Nanoengineering for Mechanobiology.

Join us online for the exciting talk:

Light as a tool for mechanobiology : Introducing SENSOCELL optical tweezers

IMPETUX will participate introducing SENSOCELL optical tweezers and Dr. Krieg  from the Neurophotonics and Mechanical Systems Biology Research Group at ICFO will show the photonic solutions applications to the field of Mechanobiology.

 

 

During my talk, I will highlight recent progress to understand the interplay between cellular and molecular nanomechanics and their role in regulating cellular physiology. I focus on work on the nervous system of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, which is a popular experimental system to combine engineering, biophysics and cell biology, due to its stereotyped body plan, known structural connectome and amenable genetics. C elegans uses a set of different sensory neurons to navigate its habitat which endow the animals to process chemical and mechanical stimuli in a changing environment. Some of these neurons respond to minute mechanical forces delivered to the skin of the animal, while others respond to stresses generated within the animals that originate from muscle contraction during locomotion. How these stresses are borne by molecular mechanics, transmitted within biological tissues and activate biochemical pathways is one of the last challenges in mechanosensory biology. This lack of understanding is largely due in part to the absence of appropriate techniques to investigate the effect of mechanical properties of cells and neurons within living organisms at the level of a single molecule. In this webinar, I will highlight some recent efforts from our lab to further our understanding of how mechanical stresses distribute within cells and enable mechanosensory behavior such as touch and proprioception.

 

Looking forward meeting you there! You only need to register here.

 

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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.