Journal
EMBO REPORTS
Volume 20, Issue 12, Pages -Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.15252/embr.201947755
Keywords
actomyosin; Ca2+ uncaging; cell contractility; morphogenesis; optochemical
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Funding
- Gottingen Centre for Molecular Biology
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) [FOR1756 GR1945/6-1/2, SFB937/TP10, INST1525/16-1 FUGG]
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The spatial and temporal dynamics of cell contractility plays a key role in tissue morphogenesis, wound healing, and cancer invasion. Here, we report a simple optochemical method to induce cell contractions in vivo during Drosophila morphogenesis at single-cell resolution. We employed the photolabile Ca2+ chelator o-nitrophenyl EGTA to induce bursts of intracellular free Ca2+ by laser photolysis in the epithelial tissue. Ca2+ bursts appear within seconds and are restricted to individual target cells. Cell contraction reliably followed within a minute, causing an approximately 50% drop in the cross-sectional area. Increased Ca2+ levels are reversible, and the target cells further participated in tissue morphogenesis. Depending on Rho kinase (ROCK) activity but not RhoGEF2, cell contractions are paralleled with non-muscle myosin II accumulation in the apico-medial cortex, indicating that Ca2+ bursts trigger non-muscle myosin II activation. Our approach can be, in principle, adapted to many experimental systems and species, as no specific genetic elements are required.
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