The cytoplasm of living cells behaves as a poroelastic material
Top Cited Papers
Open Access
- 6 January 2013
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature Materials
- Vol. 12 (3), 253-261
- https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3517
Abstract
The cytoplasm is the largest part of the cell by volume and hence its rheology sets the rate at which cellular shape changes can occur. Recent experimental evidence suggests that cytoplasmic rheology can be described by a poroelastic model, in which the cytoplasm is treated as a biphasic material consisting of a porous elastic solid meshwork (cytoskeleton, organelles, macromolecules) bathed in an interstitial fluid (cytosol). In this picture, the rate of cellular deformation is limited by the rate at which intracellular water can redistribute within the cytoplasm. However, direct supporting evidence for the model is lacking. Here we directly validate the poroelastic model to explain cellular rheology at short timescales using microindentation tests in conjunction with mechanical, chemical and genetic treatments. Our results show that water redistribution through the solid phase of the cytoplasm (cytoskeleton and macromolecular crowders) plays a fundamental role in setting cellular rheology at short timescales.Keywords
This publication has 54 references indexed in Scilit:
- Analysis of Aquaporin-Mediated Diffusional Water Permeability by Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering MicroscopyBiophysical Journal, 2011
- Assessment of strain and strain rate in embryonic chick heartin vivousing tissue Doppler optical coherence tomographyPhysics in Medicine & Biology, 2011
- Crowding and hydrodynamic interactions likely dominate in vivo macromolecular motionProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010
- Intracellular fluid flow in rapidly moving cellsNature, 2009
- Universal behavior of the osmotically compressed cell and its analogy to the colloidal glass transitionProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009
- Implications of a poroelastic cytoplasm for the dynamics of animal cell shapeSeminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, 2008
- α-Actinin Is Required for Tightly Regulated Remodeling of the Actin Cortical Network during CytokinesisDevelopmental Cell, 2007
- Unregulated actin polymerization by WASp causes defects of mitosis and cytokinesis in X-linked neutropeniaThe Journal of Experimental Medicine, 2007
- Universal physical responses to stretch in the living cellNature, 2007
- The consensus mechanics of cultured mammalian cellsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006