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Low Stress Ion Conductance Microscopy of Sub-Cellular Stiffness

Clarke, RW; Novak, P; Zhukov, A; Tyler, EJ; Cano-Jaimez, M; Drews, A; Richards, O; ... Klenerman, D; + view all (2016) Low Stress Ion Conductance Microscopy of Sub-Cellular Stiffness. Soft Matter , 12 (38) pp. 7953-7958. 10.1039/c6sm01106c. Green open access

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Abstract

Directly examining subcellular mechanics whilst avoiding excessive strain of a live cell requires the precise control of light stress on very small areas, which is fundamentally difficult. Here we use a glass nanopipet out of contact with the plasma membrane to both exert the stress on the cell and also accurately monitor cellular compression. This allows the mapping of cell stiffness at a lateral resolution finer than 100 nm. We calculate the stress a nanopipet exerts on a cell as the sum of the intrinsic pressure between the tip face and the plasma membrane plus its direct pressure on any glycocalyx, both evaluated from the gap size in terms of the ion current decrease. A survey of cell types confirms that an intracellular pressure of approximately 120 Pa begins to detach the plasma membrane from the cytoskeleton and reveals that the first 0.66 ± 0.09 μm of compression of a neuron cell body is much softer than previous methods have been able to detect.

Type: Article
Title: Low Stress Ion Conductance Microscopy of Sub-Cellular Stiffness
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1039/c6sm01106c
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1039/c6sm01106c
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © Open Access Article. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1523947
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