Faulty cell division can put organisms, including people, on the pathway to diseases such as cancer, Robinson notes, and a better understanding of how cells respond to mechanical stress on their shapes could present new targets for both diagnosing and treating such diseases.
Working with hardy, single-celled protozoa that move and divide similarly to human cells, the scientists watched through microscopes while they deformed the cells' shapes with a tiny instrument that, like a soda straw, sucks in on the cell surface and creates distorted shapes.
"This particular method, based on a very old principle that dates back to Archimedes, enables us to deform cells without killing them, much in the same way that natural processes in the body constantly assault them, Robinson says."
Once the cells were warped, the scientists monitored the movements of fluorescent-tagged myosin II and cortexillin I. Myosin, which normally accumulates in the middles of cells during division to help power that process, collected instead at the sites of disturbances made by the micropipette. Also amassing with myosin was cortexillin I, a so-called actin-crosslinking protein that, like glue, holds the toothpick-like filaments of a cell's housing together.
In the experiments, as soon as the two proteins accumulated to a certain level, the cells contracted, escaping the pipettes and assuming their original shapes. After the cells righted themselves, the proteins realigned along the cells' midlines and pinched to divide symmetrically into two daughter cells.
The researchers repeated the experiment using cells engineered to lack myosin II and then again with cells lacking cortexillin I. They discovered that cortexillin I responded to deformations except when myosin II was removed, and myosin II responded to deformations except when cortexillin I was removed.
"It's clear that the two need each other to operate as a cellular mechanosensor," Robinson says.
Watch dividing cells "feel" their way out of warp.
(Photo Credit: Johns Hopkins Medicine)
Douglas N. Robinson, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Cell Biology, Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
(Photo Credit: Johns Hopkins Medicine)