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Shape remodeling and blebbing of active cytoskeletal vesicles.

ABSTRACT: Morphological transformations of living cells, such as shape adaptation to external stimuli, blebbing, invagination, or tethering, result from an intricate interplay between the plasma membrane and its underlying cytoskeleton, where molecular motors generate forces. Cellular complexity defies a clear identification of the competing processes that lead to such a rich phenomenology. In a synthetic biology approach, designing a cell-like model assembled from a minimal set of purified building blocks would allow the control of all relevant parameters. We reconstruct actomyosin vesicles in which the coupling of the cytoskeleton to the membrane, the topology of the cytoskeletal network, and the contractile activity can all be precisely controlled and tuned. We demonstrate that tension generation of an encapsulated active actomyosin network suffices for global shape transformation of cell-sized lipid vesicles, which are reminiscent of morphological adaptations in living cells. The observed polymorphism of our cell-like model, such as blebbing, tether extrusion, or faceted shapes, can be qualitatively explained by the protein concentration dependencies and a force balance, taking into account the membrane tension, the density of anchoring points between the membrane and the actin network, and the forces exerted by molecular motors in the actin network. The identification of the physical mechanisms for shape transformations of active cytoskeletal vesicles sets a conceptual and quantitative benchmark for the further exploration of the adaptation mechanisms of cells.

SUBMITTER: Loiseau E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4846454 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Shape remodeling and blebbing of active cytoskeletal vesicles.

Loiseau Etienne E Schneider Jochen A M JA Keber Felix C FC Pelzl Carina C Massiera Gladys G Salbreux Guillaume G Bausch Andreas R AR

Science advances 20160415 4

Morphological transformations of living cells, such as shape adaptation to external stimuli, blebbing, invagination, or tethering, result from an intricate interplay between the plasma membrane and its underlying cytoskeleton, where molecular motors generate forces. Cellular complexity defies a clear identification of the competing processes that lead to such a rich phenomenology. In a synthetic biology approach, designing a cell-like model assembled from a minimal set of purified building block ...[more]

PMID: 27152328

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Project description:Many emerging cell-based therapies are based on pluripotent stem cells, though complete understanding of the properties of these cells is lacking. In these cells, much is still unknown about the cytoskeletal network, which governs the mechanoresponse. The objective of this study was to determine the cytoskeletal state in undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells and remodeling with differentiation. Mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and reprogrammed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), as well as the original un-reprogrammed embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), were evaluated for expression of cytoskeletal markers. We found that pluripotent stem cells overall have a less developed cytoskeleton compared to fibroblasts. Gene and protein expression of smooth muscle cell actin, vimentin, lamin A, and nestin were markedly lower for ESCs than MEFs. Whereas, iPSC samples were heterogeneous with most cells expressing patterns of cytoskeletal proteins similar to ESCs with a small subpopulation similar to MEFs. This indicates that dedifferentiation during reprogramming is associated with cytoskeletal remodeling to a less developed state. In differentiation studies, it was found that shear stress-mediated differentiation resulted in an increase in expression of cytoskeletal intermediate filaments in ESCs, but not in iPSC samples. In the embryoid body model of spontaneous differentiation of pluripotent stem cells, however, both ESCs and iPSCs had similar gene expression for cytoskeletal proteins during early differentiation. With further differentiation, however, gene levels were significantly higher for iPSCs compared to ESCs. These results indicate that reprogrammed iPSCs more readily reacquire cytoskeletal proteins compared to the ESCs that need to form the network de novo. The strategic selection of the parental phenotype is thus critical not only in the context of reprogramming but also the ultimate functionality of the iPSC-differentiated cell population. Overall, this increased characterization of the cytoskeleton in pluripotent stem cells will allow for the better understanding and design of stem cell-based therapies.

Dataset Information

Shape remodeling and blebbing of active cytoskeletal vesicles.

Publications

Shape remodeling and blebbing of active cytoskeletal vesicles.

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