Hi
Considering the role of actin in exerting traction forces, transfection of actin GFP should lead to changes in the forces exerted by cells. Could anyone suggest papers which talk about the difference in traction forces between non-actin GFP expressing cells and actin GFP expressing cells?
Thanks
Dear Somanna,
Transfection of FP actin is unlikely to significantly change the cellular pool of actin and to increase traction forces.
Actin is one of the most abundant cellular proteins (mM range). Furthermore, the FP moiety often negatively affects the incorporation of FP-actin monomers into actin filaments.
Hope this helps,
Metello
Dear Somanna,
maybe this paper can help a little
Article Differential effects of LifeAct-GFP and actin-GFP on cell me...
...however it's more about changes in membrane viscoelasticity upon transfection rather then traction forces.Hope it helps,
Pasquale
Hi Pasquale
Thank you for taking the time to find the article. I have already read it. Since the work in the article shows some changes in the stiffness of GFP-actin expressing cells compared to control, I wondered if other measurements would also change. That article was the reason I asked the question.
Again, thank you for taking the time to answer.
Cheers
Hi Metello
Thank you for your response. As you can see in the above to Pasquale, GFP-actin expressing cells have been shown to have slightly increased stiffness compared to control cells. This is why I suspect that it might increase Traction Forces also. I haven't found any paper showing a comparison between the forces exerted by a control cell type and the same cell type transfected with GFP actin. I believe that such a study would have implications on experiments where mechanical properties of cells are studied using GFP-actin to observe cytoskeletal response. Hence my interest in the field.
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
Cheers
Somanna
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