Journal
NATURE METHODS
Volume 14, Issue 2, Pages 181-186Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/NMETH.4101
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- MRSEC Program of the NSF under award DMR [1121053]
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Otis Williams Foundation
- EMBO Long-Term Fellowship [EMBO ALTF 509-2013]
- Errett Fisher Foundation
- NTH [1R21HD084285-01]
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The mechanical properties of the cellular microenvironment and their spatiotemporal variations are thought to play a central role in sculpting embryonic tissues, maintaining organ architecture and controlling cell behavior, including cell differentiation. However, no direct in vivo and in situ measurement of mechanical properties within developing 3D tissues and organs has yet been performed. Here we introduce a technique that employs biocompatible, magnetically responsive ferrofluid microdroplets as local mechanical actuators and allows quantitative spatiotemporal measurements of mechanical properties in vivo. Using this technique, we show that vertebrate body elongation entails spatially varying tissue mechanics along the anteroposterior axis. Specifically, we find that the zebrafish tailbud is viscoelastic (elastic below a few seconds and fluid after just 1 min) and displays decreasing stiffness and increasing fluidity toward its posterior elongating region. This method opens new avenues to study mechanobiology in vivo, both in embryogenesis and in disease processes, including cancer.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available