Tracking collective cell migration by confocal microscopy

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Cells adopt different morphologies to perform various functions. Understanding the mechanisms involved in morphodynamical changes is thus important to understand fundamental cellular processes including cell migration, cell division or cell signalling. One potent approach to study morphodynamics is to use powerful microscopes to monitor changes in cell shape and the distribution of molecular components in real time. This can be done by using various cellular fluorescent markers, thus enabling the dynamic tracking of cellular constituents in real time. In the past 20 years or so, such visualization of cellular proteins in real time has enabled enormous progress in our understanding of the mechanisms of cell migration, cell division and cell signalling, yet there is still much we need to learn in order to comprehend how these processes works. The research programs of the 4 applicants are aimed precisely at studying the mechanistic details of these complex processes. To this end, they rely on powerful microscopes that enable them to visualize how certain proteins behave inside cells in vivo and in culture, and thus gain insight into the function of these proteins and into the mechanisms of cell morphodynamics. Yet their ability to monitor these dynamic events would require to be able to track processes such as cell migration and cell divisions for long period of time. Currently, their equipment is limiting as it lacks the ability to image cell by DIC simultaneously with fluorescence and to control the position of the focal plane for long time-lapse recordings. The goal of this proposal is to acquire upgrades that will enable such specific live imaging techniques, thus enabling the applicants to carry out their research programs and further our mechanistic understanding of how cells shape is regulated.