Light as a tool for mechanobiology-Introducing SENSOCELL optical tweezers

Massimo Vassalli

Impetux will introduce SENSOCELL optical tweezers and Dr. Krieg will show the photonic solutions applications to the field of Mechanobiology

The millimeter scale mechanics of biological tissues is an emergent character originating from the material properties of the constituent cells and their mutual adhesive interactions. Likewise, the cell is an inhomogenous, anisotropic and non-linear material composed of thousands of different components that interact transiently and/or permanently. Despite this complexity, previous research has shown that a few dominating elements of the cytoskeleton are largely responsible for the cellular strain response to mechanical stress. Thus, it is plausible that these mechanoresponsive molecules also endow some functionality to the cell - a property that has been largely investigated decoupled from the cellular physiology.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.

SENSOCELL is the only optical tweezers platform in the market that allows measuring biological forces inside living cells and tissues in a direct and absolute way. Our patented and exclusive technology allows for the first time simultaneous direct force measurements over up to 256 optical traps, even inside cells and tissues and without needing any previous calibration, thus opening the door to unprecedented cell mechanics experiments in in vivo conditions. Among its large number of applications, we can mention cell nucleus indentation, extra- and intra-cellular micro-rheology, cell membrane mechanoreceptor forces, cell deformation, cell-cell interaction forces or motor proteins activity studies.