title: Investigation of in vivo microtubule and stress fiber mechanics with laser ablation.
abstract: Laser ablation has emerged as a useful technique to study the mechanical properties of the cytoskeleton in living cells. Laser ablation perturbs the force balance in the cytoskeleton, resulting in a dynamic response which can be imaged. Quantitative measurement of the dynamic response allows the testing of mechanical theories of the cytoskeleton in living cells. This review discusses recent work in applying laser ablation to study stress fiber and microtubule mechanics in living endothelial cells. These studies reveal that molecular motors are major determinants of the mechanical properties of the cytoskeleton in cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. tlele@che.ufl.edu
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Richard B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Dickinson
authors.forename: Tanmay P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Lele
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D061346:Laser Capture Microdissection / Q000379:methods*; D053685:Laser Therapy / Q000379:methods; D008870:Microtubules; D020409:Molecular Motor Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D022502:Stress Fibers / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D020409:Molecular Motor Proteins