David Martinez-Martin, University of Sidney

Life and cell’s mass dynamics

When: 12:00-13:00 CET, January 19th (Thursday), 2023

Where: Main Hall, ICMM-CSIC, Campus de Cantoblanco, Madrid

Living cells sense and exchange biological, chemical, and mechanical information, as well as nutrients, water and waste products with their surroundings. These processes involve changes of a cell’s volume and mass[1] and are tightly linked to fundamental processes such as metabolism, proliferation[2], gene expression[3] and cell death. Yet it remains challenging to characterise the dynamics and regulation of a cell’s mass and volume in real time and with high accuracy, hampering our understanding of cell physiology. Moreover, dysregulation of cell mass is a critical underlying force in the development and progression of many disorders[4] such as cancer, diabetes type 2, obesity, cardiovascular disease and ageing. Therefore understanding how cells regulate their mass has enormous potential to transform the way we diagnose, monitor and treat disease[5].

I will introduce a new technology (picobalance) that we have developed, which is based on an optomechanical microresonator[6]. It measures the mass of single or multiple cells in culture conditions over days at millisecond time resolution reaching subpicogram mass sensitivity. Besides, this technology allows measuring  cells’ rheological properties[7]. I will present some of the results we have discovered using this technology in both mammalian cells[6] and yeast[1], and which challenge models in biology that have been central for decades[1, 5, 6]. 

References

1. Cuny, A.P., et al., High-resolution mass measurements of single budding yeast reveal linear growth segments. Nat Commun, 2022. 13(1): p. 3483.

2. Lang, F., et al., Functional significance of cell volume regulatory mechanisms. Physiological Reviews, 1998. 78(1): p. 247-306.

3. Haussinger, D., The role of cellular hydration in the regulation of cell function. Biochemical Journal, 1996. 313: p. 697-710.

4. Lloyd, A.C., The Regulation of Cell Size. Cell, 2013. 154(6): p. 1194-1205.

5. Martinez-Martin, D., Dynamics of cell mass and size control in multicellular systems and the human body. Journal of Biological Research-Thessaloniki, 2022. 29.

6. Martinez-Martin, D., et al., Inertial picobalance reveals fast mass fluctuations in mammalian cells. Nature, 2017. 550(7677): p. 500-505.

7. Flaschner, G., et al., Rheology of rounded mammalian cells over continuous high-frequencies. Nat Commun, 2021. 12(1): p. 2922.