Using blinking optical tweezers to study cell rheology during initial cell-particle contact.

ABSTRACT: Phagocytosis is an important part of innate immunity and describes the engulfment of bacteria and other extracellular objects on the micrometer scale. The protrusion of the cell membrane around the bacteria during this process is driven by a reorganization of the actin cortex. The process has been studied on the molecular level to great extent during the past decades. However, a deep, fundamental understanding of the mechanics of the process is still lacking, in particular because of a lack of techniques that give access to binding dynamics below the optical resolution limit and cellular viscoelasticity at the same time. In this work, we propose a technique to characterize the mechanical properties of cells in a highly localized manner and apply it to investigate the early stages of phagoc

SUBMITTER: Berghoff K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8391049 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature