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Dinet C, Torres-Sánchez A, Lanfranco R, Di Michele L, Arroyo M, Staykova M. Patterning and dynamics of membrane adhesion under hydraulic stress. Nat Commun 2023; 14:7445. [PMID: 37978292 PMCID: PMC10656516 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43246-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2023] [Accepted: 11/02/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Hydraulic fracturing plays a major role in cavity formation during embryonic development, when pressurized fluid opens microlumens at cell-cell contacts, which evolve to form a single large lumen. However, the fundamental physical mechanisms behind these processes remain masked by the complexity and specificity of biological systems. Here, we show that adhered lipid vesicles subjected to osmotic stress form hydraulic microlumens similar to those in cells. Combining vesicle experiments with theoretical modelling and numerical simulations, we provide a physical framework for the hydraulic reconfiguration of cell-cell adhesions. We map the conditions for microlumen formation from a pristine adhesion, the emerging dynamical patterns and their subsequent maturation. We demonstrate control of the fracturing process depending on the applied pressure gradients and the type and density of membrane bonds. Our experiments further reveal an unexpected, passive transition of microlumens to closed buds that suggests a physical route to adhesion remodeling by endocytosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Céline Dinet
- Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham, UK
- Laboratoire de Chimie Bactérienne, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée, CNRS-Aix-Marseille University, 31 Chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13009, Marseille, France
| | - Alejandro Torres-Sánchez
- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech, 08034, Barcelona, Spain
- Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, 08028, Barcelona, Spain
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-Barcelona), 08003, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Roberta Lanfranco
- Department of Physics, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Lorenzo Di Michele
- Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Chemistry, Imperial College of London, London, UK
| | - Marino Arroyo
- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech, 08034, Barcelona, Spain.
- Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, 08028, Barcelona, Spain.
- Centre Internacional de Mètodes Numèrics en Enginyeria (CIMNE), 08034, Barcelona, Spain.
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Caliari A, Hanczyc MM, Imai M, Xu J, Yomo T. Quantification of Giant Unilamellar Vesicle Fusion Products by High-Throughput Image Analysis. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24:ijms24098241. [PMID: 37175944 PMCID: PMC10179211 DOI: 10.3390/ijms24098241] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2023] [Revised: 04/29/2023] [Accepted: 05/02/2023] [Indexed: 05/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Artificial cells are based on dynamic compartmentalized systems. Thus, remodeling of membrane-bound systems, such as giant unilamellar vesicles, is finding applications beyond biological studies, to engineer cell-mimicking structures. Giant unilamellar vesicle fusion is rapidly becoming an essential experimental step as artificial cells gain prominence in synthetic biology. Several techniques have been developed to accomplish this step, with varying efficiency and selectivity. To date, characterization of vesicle fusion has relied on small samples of giant vesicles, examined either manually or by fluorometric assays on suspensions of small and large unilamellar vesicles. Automation of the detection and characterization of fusion products is now necessary for the screening and optimization of these fusion protocols. To this end, we implemented a fusion assay based on fluorophore colocalization on the membranes and in the lumen of vesicles. Fluorescence colocalization was evaluated within single compartments by image segmentation with minimal user input, allowing the application of the technique to high-throughput screenings. After detection, statistical information on vesicle fluorescence and morphological properties can be summarized and visualized, assessing lipid and content transfer for each object by the correlation coefficient of different fluorescence channels. Using this tool, we report and characterize the unexpected fusogenic activity of sodium chloride on phosphatidylcholine giant vesicles. Lipid transfer in most of the vesicles could be detected after 20 h of incubation, while content exchange only occurred with additional stimuli in around 8% of vesicles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adriano Caliari
- Laboratory of Biology and Information Science, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
- Laboratory for Artificial Biology, Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology (CIBIO), University of Trento, Polo Scientifico e Tecnologico Fabio Ferrari, Polo B, Via Sommarive 9, 38123 Povo, Italy
| | - Martin M Hanczyc
- Laboratory for Artificial Biology, Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology (CIBIO), University of Trento, Polo Scientifico e Tecnologico Fabio Ferrari, Polo B, Via Sommarive 9, 38123 Povo, Italy
| | - Masayuki Imai
- Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, 6-3 Aramaki, Aoba, Sendai 980-8578, Japan
| | - Jian Xu
- Laboratory of Biology and Information Science, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - Tetsuya Yomo
- Laboratory of Biology and Information Science, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
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Boytsov D, Hannesschlaeger C, Horner A, Siligan C, Pohl P. Micropipette Aspiration-Based Assessment of Single Channel Water Permeability. Biotechnol J 2020; 15:e1900450. [PMID: 32346982 DOI: 10.1002/biot.201900450] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2020] [Revised: 03/20/2020] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Measurements of the unitary hydraulic conductivity of membrane channels, pf , may be hampered by difficulties in producing sufficient quantities of purified and reconstituted proteins. Low yield expression, the purely empiric choice of detergents, as well as protein aggregation and misfolding during reconstitution may result in an average of less than one reconstituted channel per large unilamellar vesicle. This limits their applicability for pf measurements, independent of whether light scattering or fluorescence quenching of encapsulated dyes is monitored. Here the micropipette aspiration technique is adopted because its superb sensitivity allows resolving pf values for one order of magnitude smaller protein densities in sphingomyelin and cholesterol rich giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). Protein density is derived from intensity fluctuations that fluorescently labeled channels in the aspirated GUV induce by diffusing through the diffraction limited spot. A perfusion system minimizes unstirred layers in the immediate membrane vicinity as demonstrated by the distribution of both encapsulated and extravesicular aqueous dyes. pf amounted to 2.4 ± 0.1 × 10-13 cm³ s-1 for aquaporin-1 that served as a test case. The new assay paves the way for directly monitoring the effect that interaction of aquaporins with other proteins or inhibitors may have on pf on a single sample.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danila Boytsov
- Institute of Biophysics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, 4020, Austria
| | | | - Andreas Horner
- Institute of Biophysics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, 4020, Austria
| | - Christine Siligan
- Institute of Biophysics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, 4020, Austria
| | - Peter Pohl
- Institute of Biophysics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, 4020, Austria
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Xie K, Yang Y, Jiang H. Controlling Cellular Volume via Mechanical and Physical Properties of Substrate. Biophys J 2019; 114:675-687. [PMID: 29414713 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2017.11.3785] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2017] [Revised: 11/17/2017] [Accepted: 11/28/2017] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
The mechanical and physical properties of substrate play a crucial role in regulating many cell functions and behaviors. However, how these properties affect cell volume is still unclear. Here, we show that an increase in substrate stiffness, available spread area, or effective adhesion energy density results in a remarkable cell volume decrease (up to 50%), and the dynamic cell spreading process is also accompanied by dramatic cell volume decrease. Further, studies of ion channel inhibition and osmotic shock suggest that these volume decreases are due to the efflux of water and ions. We also show that disrupting cortex contractility leads to bigger cell volume. Collectively, these results reveal the "mechanism of adhesion-induced compression of cells," i.e., stronger interaction between cell and substrate leads to higher actomyosin contractility, expels water and ions, and thus decreases cell volume.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kenan Xie
- CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Yuehua Yang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
| | - Hongyuan Jiang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
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Abstract
Water at interfaces governs many processes on the molecular scale from electrochemical and enzymatic reactions to protein folding. Here we focus on water transport through proteinaceous pores that are so narrow that the water molecules cannot overtake each other in the pore. After a short introduction into the single-file transport theory, we analyze experiments in which the unitary water permeability, pf, of water channel proteins (aquaporins, AQPs), potassium channels (KcsA), and antibiotics (gramicidin-A derivatives) has been obtained. A short outline of the underlying methods (scanning electrochemical microscopy, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, measurements of vesicle light scattering) is also provided. We conclude that pf increases exponentially with a decreasing number NH of hydrogen bond donating or accepting residues in the channel wall. The variance in NH is responsible for a more than hundredfold change in pf. The dehydration penalty at the channel mouth has a smaller effect on pf. The intricate link between pf and the Gibbs activation energy barrier, ΔG‡t, for water flow suggests that conformational transitions of water channels act as a third determinant of pf.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreas Horner
- Johannes Kepler University Linz, Institute of Biophysics, Gruberstr. 40, 4020 Linz, Austria.
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Losada-Pérez P, Khorshid M, Renner FU. Interactions of Aqueous Imidazolium-Based Ionic Liquid Mixtures with Solid-Supported Phospholipid Vesicles. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0163518. [PMID: 27684947 PMCID: PMC5042501 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0163518] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2016] [Accepted: 09/09/2016] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite the environmentally friendly reputation of ionic liquids (ILs), their safety has been recently questioned given their potential as cytotoxic agents. The fundamental mechanisms underlying the interactions between ILs and cells are less studied and by far not completely understood. Biomimetic films are here important biophysical model systems to elucidate fundamental aspects and mechanisms relevant for a large range of biological interaction ranging from signaling to drug reception or toxicity. Here we use dissipative quartz crystal microbalance QCM-D to examine the effect of aqueous imidazolium-based ionic liquid mixtures on solid-supported biomimetic membranes. Specifically, we assess in real time the effect of the cation chain length and the anion nature on a supported vesicle layer of the model phospholipid DMPC. Results indicate that interactions are mainly driven by the hydrophobic components of the IL, which significantly distort the layer and promote vesicle rupture. Our analyses evidence the gradual decrease of the main phase transition temperature upon increasing IL concentration, reflecting increased disorder by weakening of lipid chain interactions. The degree of rupture is significant for ILs with long hydrophobic cation chains and large hydrophobic anions whose behavior is reminiscent of that of antimicrobial peptides.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mehran Khorshid
- Institute for Materials Research IMO, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium
| | - Frank Uwe Renner
- Institute for Materials Research IMO, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium
- IMEC vzw, Associated lab IMOMEC, Diepenbeek, Belgium
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