Forster resonance energy transfer efficiency of the vinculin tension sensor in cultured primary cortical neuronal growth cones

Significance: Interaction of neurons with their extracellular environment and the mechanical forces at focal adhesions and synaptic junctions play important roles in neuronal development. Aim: To advance studies of mechanotransduction, we demonstrate the use of the vinculin tension sensor (VinTS) in primary cultures of cortical neurons. VinTS consists of TS module (TSMod), a Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based tension sensor, inserted between vinculin's head and tail. FRET efficiency decreases with increased tension across vinculin. Approach: Primary cortical neurons cultured on glass coverslips coated with poly-D-lysine and laminin were transfected with plasmids encoding untargeted TSMod, VinTS, or tail-less vinculinTS (VinTL) lacking the actin-binding domain. The neurons were imaged between day in vitro (DIV) 5 to 8. We detail the image processing steps for calculation of FRET efficiency and use this system to investigate the expression and FRET efficiency of VinTS in growth cones. Results: The distribution of fluorescent constructs was similar within growth cones at DIV 5 to 8. The mean FRET efficiency of TSMod (28.5 +/- 3.6%) in growth cones was higher than the mean FRET efficiency of VinTS (24.6 +/- 2%) and VinTL (25.8 +/- 1.8%) (p < 10-6). While small, the difference between the FRET efficiency of VinTS and VinTL was statistically significant (p < 10-3), suggesting that vinculin is under low tension in growth cones. Two-hour treatment with the Rho-associated kinase inhibitor Y-27632 did not affect the mean FRET efficiency. Growth cones exhibited dynamic changes in morphology as observed by time-lapse imaging. VinTS FRET efficiency showed greater variance than TSMod FRET efficiency as a function of time, suggesting a greater dependence of VinTS FRET efficiency on growth cone dynamics compared with TSMod. Conclusions: The results demonstrate the feasibility of using VinTS to probe the function of vinculin in neuronal growth cones and provide a foundation for studies of mechanotransduction in neurons using this tension probe. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates the use of the vinculin tension sensor (VinTS) in primary cultures of cortical neurons to study the interaction between neurons and mechanical forces. The results show that vinculin is under low tension in growth cones and its FRET efficiency is more sensitive to growth cone dynamics compared to a control sensor. This study provides a foundation for further investigations of mechanotransduction in neurons using VinTS.