Shining a light on RhoA: Optical control of cell contractility
Shining a light on RhoA: Optical control of cell contractility
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DOI：
10.1016/j.biocel.2023.106442
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发表时间：
2023-06-26
影响因子：
4
通讯作者：
Oakes, Patrick W.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Chandrasekar, Shreya;Beach, Jordan R.;Oakes, Patrick W.
除了生物化学和电化学信号外，细胞还广泛依赖机械信号来调节其行为。虽然已经从物理学和工程学中改编了许多工具来操纵细胞力学，但它们通常需要专门的设备或缺乏时空精度。另一种方法是，最近更优雅的方法是使用光本身来调节细胞内的机械平衡。这种方法利用光遗传学的力量，可以在时间和空间上以完全可逆的方式控制，以调节RhoA信号传导，细胞收缩性的主要调节因子。我们在此综述了这种方法的基础，包括说明光遗传学提供的可调性和灵活性，并演示了这种工具如何用于调节内部细胞骨架流动和收缩力的产生。这些特征共同突出了光遗传学为研究细胞中的机械相互作用提供的优势。
In addition to biochemical and electrochemical signaling, cells also rely extensively on mechanical signaling to regulate their behavior. While a number of tools have been adapted from physics and engineering to manipulate cell mechanics, they typically require specialized equipment or lack spatiotemporal precision. Alternatively, a recent, more elegant approach is to use light itself to modulate the mechanical equilibrium inside the cell. This approach leverages the power of optogenetics, which can be controlled in a fully reversible manner in both time and space, to tune RhoA signaling, the master regulator of cellular contractility. We review here the funda-mentals of this approach, including illustrating the tunability and flexibility that optogenetics offers, and demonstrate how this tool can be used to modulate both internal cytoskeletal flows and contractile force gen-eration. Together these features highlight the advantages that optogenetics offers for investigating mechanical interactions in cells.