Abstract
Cytoskeleton morphology plays a key role in regulating cell mechanics. Particularly, cellular mechanical properties are directly regulated by the highly cross-linked and dynamic cytoskeletal structure of F-actin and microtubules presented in the cytoplasm. Although great efforts have been devoted to investigating the qualitative relation between the cellular cytoskeleton state and cell mechanical properties, comprehensive quantification results of how the states of F-actin and microtubules affect mechanical behavior are still lacking. In this study, the effect of both F-actin and microtubules morphology on cellular mechanical properties was quantified using atomic force microscope indentation experiments together with the proposed image recognition-based cytoskeleton quantification approach. Young’s modulus and diffusion coefficient of NIH/3T3 cells with different cytoskeleton states were quantified at different length scales. It was found that the living NIH/3T3 cells sense and adapt to the F-actin and microtubules states: both the cellular elasticity and poroelasticity are closely correlated to the depolymerization degree of F-actin and microtubules at all measured indentation depths. Moreover, the significance of the quantitative effects of F-actin and microtubules in affecting cellular mechanical behavior is depth-dependent.
Highlights
Cellular cytoskeleton, composed of F-actin, microtubules and intermediate filaments, is a highly cross-linked and dynamic network present in all cells cytoplasm [1,2,3]
Previous studies have shown the effect of the F-actin and microtubules on the cellular mechanical properties, quantitative analysis on how F-actin and microtubules affect the intracellular elasticity and poroelasticity has not yet been investigated
Using the proposed image recognition-based cytoskeleton quantification (IRCQ), we quantified the correlation between the cytoskeleton morphology and cellular mechanical behavior
Summary
Cellular cytoskeleton, composed of F-actin (actin filaments), microtubules and intermediate filaments, is a highly cross-linked and dynamic network present in all cells cytoplasm [1,2,3]. Microtubules provide a platform for cellular cargo transportation including macromolecular assembly, organelles and secretory movement [7,8]. It has been widely demonstrated that both F-actin and microtubules can reorganize their network structures to control the cellular mechanical properties through the assembly and disassembly when the extracellular environment changes [9,10,11,12]. Quantitative results on how the F-actin and microtubules affect the cellular mechanical properties may provide in-depth understandings of the cellular adaptive response to external stimuli, and intracellular transduction mechanisms. Great efforts have been devoted to investigating the quantitative relation between the cellular cytoskeleton network and the cell mechanical properties, comprehensive quantification results involving cytoskeleton morphology and mechanical parameters are still lacking
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