Thermal resonance in living cells to control their heat exchange: Possible applications in cancer treatment

Author(s):  
Umberto Lucia ◽  
Giulia Grisolia
2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camino Latorre-Romero ◽  
Margarita R. Marin-Yaseli ◽  
Carolina Belmar-Lopez ◽  
Raquel del Moral ◽  
Pedro C. Marijuan ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
R. Y. Tsien ◽  
A. Minta ◽  
M. Poenie ◽  
J.P.Y. Kao ◽  
A. Harootunian

Recent technical advances now enable the continuous imaging of important ionic signals inside individual living cells with micron spatial resolution and subsecond time resolution. This methodology relies on the molecular engineering of indicator dyes whose fluorescence is strong and highly sensitive to ions such as Ca2+, H+, or Na+, or Mg2+. The Ca2+ indicators, exemplified by fura-2 and indo-1, derive their high affinity (Kd near 200 nM) and selectivity for Ca2+ to a versatile tetracarboxylate binding site3 modeled on and isosteric with the well known chelator EGTA. The most commonly used pH indicators are fluorescein dyes (such as BCECF) modified to adjust their pKa's and improve their retention inside cells. Na+ indicators are crown ethers with cavity sizes chosen to select Na+ over K+: Mg2+ indicators use tricarboxylate binding sites truncated from those of the Ca2+ chelators, resulting in a more compact arrangement of carboxylates to suit the smaller ion.


Author(s):  
K. Jacobson ◽  
A. Ishihara ◽  
B. Holifield ◽  
F. Zhang

Our laboratory is concerned with understanding the dynamic structure of the plasma membrane with particular reference to the movement of membrane constituents during cell locomotion. In addition to the standard tools of molecular cell biology, we employ both fluorescence recovery after photo- bleaching (FRAP) and digitized fluorescence microscopy (DFM) to investigate individual cells. FRAP allows the measurement of translational mobility of membrane and cytoplasmic molecules in small regions of single, living cells. DFM is really a new form of light microscopy in that the distribution of individual classes of ions, molecules, and macromolecules can be followed in single, living cells. By employing fluorescent antibodies to defined antigens or fluorescent analogs of cellular constituents as well as ultrasensitive, electronic image detectors and video image averaging to improve signal to noise, fluorescent images of living cells can be acquired over an extended period without significant fading and loss of cell viability.


Author(s):  
D. L. Taylor

Cells function through the complex temporal and spatial interplay of ions, metabolites, macromolecules and macromolecular assemblies. Biochemical approaches allow the investigator to define the components and the solution chemical reactions that might be involved in cellular functions. Static structural methods can yield information concerning the 2- and 3-D organization of known and unknown cellular constituents. Genetic and molecular techniques are powerful approaches that can alter specific functions through the manipulation of gene products and thus identify necessary components and sequences of molecular events. However, full knowledge of the mechanism of particular cell functions will require direct measurement of the interplay of cellular constituents. Therefore, there has been a need to develop methods that can yield chemical and molecular information in time and space in living cells, while allowing the integration of information from biochemical, molecular and genetic approaches at the cellular level.


Author(s):  
Shinya Inoué

This paper reports progress of our effort to rapidly capture, and display in time-lapsed mode, the 3-dimensional dynamic architecture of active living cells and developing embryos at the highest resolution of the light microscope. Our approach entails: (A) real-time video tape recording of through-focal, ultrathin optical sections of live cells at the highest resolution of the light microscope; (B) repeat of A at time-lapsed intervals; (C) once each time-lapsed interval, an image at home focus is recorded onto Optical Disk Memory Recorder (OMDR); (D) periods of interest are selected using the OMDR and video tape records; (E) selected stacks of optical sections are converted into plane projections representing different view angles (±4 degrees for stereo view, additional angles when revolving stereos are desired); (F) analysis using A - D.


Author(s):  
J. R. Kuhn ◽  
M. Poenie

Cell shape and movement are controlled by elements of the cytoskeleton including actin filaments an microtubules. Unfortunately, it is difficult to visualize the cytoskeleton in living cells and hence follow it dynamics. Immunofluorescence and ultrastructural studies of fixed cells while providing clear images of the cytoskeleton, give only a static picture of this dynamic structure. Microinjection of fluorescently Is beled cytoskeletal proteins has proved useful as a way to follow some cytoskeletal events, but long terry studies are generally limited by the bleaching of fluorophores and presence of unassembled monomers.Polarization microscopy has the potential for visualizing the cytoskeleton. Although at present, it ha mainly been used for visualizing the mitotic spindle. Polarization microscopy is attractive in that it pro vides a way to selectively image structures such as cytoskeletal filaments that are birefringent. By combing ing standard polarization microscopy with video enhancement techniques it has been possible to image single filaments. In this case, however, filament intensity depends on the orientation of the polarizer and analyzer with respect to the specimen.


Author(s):  
Robert Hard ◽  
Gerald Rupp ◽  
Matthew L. Withiam-Leitch ◽  
Lisa Cardamone

In a coordinated field of beating cilia, the direction of the power stroke is correlated with the orientation of basal body appendages, called basal feet. In newt lung ciliated cells, adjacent basal feet are interconnected by cold-stable microtubules (basal MTs). In the present study, we investigate the hypothesis that these basal MTs stabilize ciliary distribution and alignment. To accomplish this, newt lung primary cultures were treated with the microtubule disrupting agent, Colcemid. In newt lung cultures, cilia normally disperse in a characteristic fashion as the mucociliary epithelium migrates from the tissue explant. Four arbitrary, but progressive stages of dispersion were defined and used to monitor this redistribution process. Ciliaiy beat frequency, coordination, and dispersion were assessed for 91 hrs in untreated (control) and treated cultures. When compared to controls, cilia dispersed more rapidly and ciliary coordination decreased markedly in cultures treated with Colcemid (2 mM). Correlative LM/EM was used to assess whether these effects of Colcemid were coupled to ultrastructural changes. Living cells were defined as having coordinated or uncoordinated cilia and then were processed for transmission EM.


Author(s):  
Yih-Tai Chen ◽  
Ursula Euteneuer ◽  
Ken B. Johnson ◽  
Michael P. Koonce ◽  
Manfred Schliwa

The application of video techniques to light microscopy and the development of motility assays in reactivated or reconstituted model systems rapidly advanced our understanding of the mechanism of organelle transport and microtubule dynamics in living cells. Two microtubule-based motors have been identified that are good candidates for motors that drive organelle transport: kinesin, a plus end-directed motor, and cytoplasmic dynein, which is minus end-directed. However, the evidence that they do in fact function as organelle motors is still indirect.We are studying microtubule-dependent transport and dynamics in the giant amoeba, Reticulomyxa. This cell extends filamentous strands backed by an extensive array of microtubules along which organelles move bidirectionally at up to 20 μm/sec (Fig. 1). Following removal of the plasma membrane with a mild detergent, organelle transport can be reactivated by the addition of ATP (1). The physiological, pharmacological and biochemical characteristics show the motor to be a cytoplasmic form of dynein (2).


Author(s):  
Ray Keller

The amphibian embryo offers advantages of size, availability, and ease of use with both microsurgical and molecular methods in the analysis of fundamental developmental and cell biological problems. However, conventional wisdom holds that the opacity of this embryo limits the use of methods in optical microscopy to resolve the cell motility underlying the major shape-generating processes in early development.These difficulties have been circumvented by refining and adapting several methods. First, methods of explanting and culturing tissues were developed that expose the deep, nonepithelial cells, as well as the superficial epithelial cells, to the view of the microscope. Second, low angle epi-illumination with video image processing and recording was used to follow patterns of cell movement in large populations of cells. Lastly, cells were labeled with vital, fluorescent dyes, and their behavior recorded, using low-light, fluorescence microscopy and image processing. Using these methods, the details of the cellular protrusive activity that drives the powerful convergence (narrowing)


Author(s):  
Carol Allen

When provided with a suitable solid substrate, tissue cells undergo a rapid conversion from the spherical form expressed in suspension culture to a characteristic flattened morphology. As a result of this conversion, called cell spreading, the cell nucleus and organelles come to occupy a central region of “deep cytoplasm” which slopes steeply into a peripheral “lamellar” region less than 1 pm thick at its outer edge and generally free of cell organelles. Cell spreading is accomplished by a continuous outward repositioning of the lamellar margins. Cell translocation on the substrate results when the activity of the lamellae on one side of the cell become dominant. When this occurs, the cell is “polarized” and moves in the direction of the “leading lamellae”. Careful analysis of tissue cell locomotion by time-lapse microphotography (1) has shown that the deformational movements of the leading lamellae occur in a repeating cycle of advance and retreat in the direction of cell movement and that the rate of such deformations are positively correlated with the speed of cell movement. In the present study, the physical basis for these movements of the cell margin has been examined by comparative light microscopy of living cells with whole-mount electron microscopy of fixed cells. Ultrastructural observations were made on tissue cells grown on Formvar-coated grids, fixed with glutaraldehyde, further processed by critical-point drying, and then photographed in the High Voltage Electron Microscope. This processing and imaging system maintains the 3-dimensional organization of the whole cell, the relationship of the cell to the substrate, and affords a large sample size which facilitates quantitative analysis. Comparative analysis of film records of living cells with the whole-cell micrographs revealed that specific patterns of microfilament organization consistently accompany recognizable stages of lamellar formation and movement. The margins of spreading cells and the leading lamellae of locomoting cells showed a similar pattern of MF repositionings (Figs. 1-4). These results will be discussed in terms of a working model for the mechanics of lamellar motility which includes the following major features: (a) lamellar protrusion results when an intracellular force is exerted at a locally weak area of the cell periphery; (b) the association of cortical MFs with one another determines the local resistance to this force; (c) where MF-to-MF association is weak, the cell periphery expands and some cortical MFs are dragged passively forward; (d) contact of the expanded area with the substrate then triggers the lateral association and reorientation of these cortical MFs into MF bundles parallel to the direction of the expansion; and (e) an active interaction between these MF bundles associated with the cortex of the expanded lamellae and the cortical MFs which remained in the sub-lamellar region then pulls the latter MFs forward toward the expanded area. Thus, the advance of the cell periphery on the substrate occurs in two stages: a passive phase in which some cortical MFs are dragged outward by the force acting to expand the cell periphery, and an active phase in which additional cortical MFs are pulled forward by interaction with the first set. Subsequent interactions between peripheral microfilament bundles and filaments in the deeper cytoplasm could then transmit the advance gained by lamellar expansion to the bulk of the cytoplasm.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document