RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Optochemical control of cell contractility at single cell resolution during tissue morphogenesis
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 255372
DO 10.1101/255372
A1 Deging Kong
A1 Fred Wolf
A1 Jörg Großhans
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/01/29/255372.abstract
AB Spatial and temporal dynamics in cell contractility plays a central role in tissue morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer invasion. Here we report a simple and minute-scale optochemical method to induce reversible cell contraction at single cell resolution during epithelial tissue morphogenesis. We employed the photolabile Ca2+ chelator o-nitrophenyl EGTA to induce a burst of intracellular free Ca2+ by UV laser. Ca2+ bursts appear within seconds and are restricted to the targeted cell. Cell contraction followed within a minute. Increased Ca2+ levels and contraction are reversible and the target cells further participated in tissue morphogenesis. Our approach can be easily adapted to many experimental systems and species, since no specific genetic elements are required and a widely used chemical is employed.