Scientists at MIT have manipulated starfish cells to change form when exposed to light.
Researchers at MIT have devised a groundbreaking method for controlling cell movement and shape development using light. By manipulating a key enzyme in starfish egg cells, they have successfully induced predictable patterns of motion, as reported in the journal Nature Physics.
The study, led by Nikta Fakhri, associate professor of physics at MIT, involved the creation of a light-sensitive version of the enzyme guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF). This enzyme, when activated, drives the production of a protein essential for cellular mechanics, causing the cell to contract and move.
By treating starfish egg cells with the newly engineered GEF, the team was able to control cell movements using different patterns of light. This allowed them to induce a variety of actions, such as small pinches, sweeping contractions, and even changing the overall shape of the cell from circular to square.
According to Fakhri, the findings could lead to the development of synthetic cells, such as therapeutic "patch" cells that contract in response to light signals to aid in wound healing, or drug-delivering "carrier" cells that release their contents only upon exposure to light in specific body areas.
"By revealing how a light-activated switch can reshape cells in real time, we're uncovering basic design principles for how living systems self-organize and evolve shape," Fakhri said. "The power of these tools is that they are guiding us to decode all these processes of growth and development, to help us understand how nature does it."
The MIT researchers' work expands upon their previous research showing that cell movements can be manipulated by varying a cell's concentrations of GEF enzymes. This time, they sought to investigate the potential for hacking this circuitry to elicit desired mechanical responses.
Based on their observations and derived theoretical framework, the team managed to predict how a cell's shape would change given specific stimulation with light. This opens up the possibility of designing "programmable" synthetic cells, allowing scientists to orchestrate shape changes at will for future biomedical applications.
Starfish egg cells have long been used as a model for understanding cell growth, division, and cytoskeleton dynamics. The cytoskeleton of starfish eggs is highly responsive to changes in Rho GTPase activity, which is mediated by GEFs. Manipulating GEF activity with light could control changes in cell shape or movement by causing localized polymerization or depolymerization of actin filaments.
The work was supported in part by the Sloan Foundation and the National Science Foundation. Further research will focus on testing the implications of these findings in various cell types and exploring potential applications in biomedical science.
- The research article published in the journal Nature Physics detailed a groundbreaking method by MIT researchers to control cell movements and shape development using light.
- The research led by Nikta Fakhri, an associate professor of physics at MIT, involved creating a light-sensitive version of the enzyme guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF).
- The team managed to control cell movements using different patterns of light by treating starfish egg cells with the newly engineered GEF.
- This study could lead to the development of synthetic cells, such as therapeutic "patch" cells that contract in response to light signals to aid in wound healing, or drug-delivering "carrier" cells that release their contents only upon exposure to light in specific body areas.
- By revealing how a light-activated switch can reshape cells in real time, the team is uncovering basic design principles for how living systems self-organize and evolve shape.
- The potential implications of this research extend to medical-conditions, health-and-wellness, fitness-and-exercise, and engineering, as future biomedical applications could arise from the ability to design "programmable" synthetic cells that orchestrate shape changes at will.
