📅DATE: May 6, 2021 | 17:25h CET | ONLINE
If you are interested in new cutting edge mechanobiology technology can’t miss it. Join us online for the exciting talk:
Cell nucleus indentation, micro-rheology, tether pulling & other cell mechanobiology applications of the SENSOCELL optical tweezers platform.
Abstract:
Optical tweezers (OT) were first applied to biology research questions in the early 90s, and since then they have been primarily used for molecular biology applications. Conversely, their use on cell biology research has been greatly limited to trapping experiments intended for moving or manipulating living cells. The sparsity of quantitative experiments using OT in living cells is mainly due to the difficulties in measuring readily and accurately the forces applied by OT onto the probed samples. Here we present our distinctive patented technology (SENSOCELL) for mechanobiology research, which allows users to carry out direct force measurements in vitro, in vivo or in situ. Forces are applied either via exogenous spherical particles or directly to endogenous trappable cellular structures such as lipid vesicles, membranes, nuclei or whole cells. Forces are measured based on the ‘light momentum method’ and via our unique technology which allows the detection in our sensor of all light scattered off the trap. Using this approach, the readout from our light sensor yields directly the force applied by the OT via a constant that is unique, permanent and calibrated at factory. Measurement protocols are thus unhindered by recurrent trap stiffness calibrations, allowing measurements to be carried out in an easy and speedy manner by non-expert users. Furthermore, the flexibility offered by individual force measurements of simultaneous multiple traps (up to 256) increases throughput and allows advanced protocols such as trapping of large objects, cell stretching or the measurement of cell-cell interaction forces. SENSOCELL is also capable of performing active micro-rheology experiments in biological samples and scaffolds, such as soft hydrogels, up to the kPa range in stiffness and kHz range in probing frequency. Additional applications include cell nucleus indentation, measurement of membrane tension, membrane tether pulling or cell-cell interactions. Importantly, all applications can be combined with simultaneous fluorescence imaging. In our presentation, we will shortly introduce the key distinctive features of our technology and show examples and results obtained by our customers and scientific collaborators for the aforementioned applications in living cells.
