PUBLICATION

Measuring cell adhesion forces of primary gastrulating cells from zebrafish using atomic force microscopy

Authors
Puech, P.H., Taubenberger, A., Ulrich, F., Krieg, M., Muller, D.J., and Heisenberg, C.P.
ID
ZDB-PUB-050913-7
Date
2005
Source
Journal of Cell Science   118(18): 4199-4206 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Heisenberg, Carl-Philipp, Ulrich, Florian
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Cell Adhesion/physiology*
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Fibronectins/metabolism
  • Gastrula/cytology*
  • Mesenchymal Stem Cells/cytology*
  • Microscopy, Atomic Force/methods
  • Wnt Proteins/genetics
  • Wnt Proteins/physiology
  • Zebrafish/embryology*
  • Zebrafish Proteins
PubMed
16155253 Full text @ J. Cell Sci.
Abstract
During vertebrate gastrulation, progenitor cells of different germ layers acquire specific adhesive properties that contribute to germ layer formation and separation. Wnt signals have been suggested to function in this process by modulating the different levels of adhesion between the germ layers, however, direct evidence for this is still lacking. Here we show that Wnt11, a key signal regulating gastrulation movements, is needed for the adhesion of zebrafish mesendodermal progenitor cells to fibronectin, an abundant extracellular matrix component during gastrulation. To measure this effect, we developed an assay to quantify the adhesion of single zebrafish primary mesendodermal progenitors using atomic-force microscopy (AFM). We observed significant differences in detachment force and work between cultured mesendodermal progenitors from wild-type embryos and from slb/wnt11 mutant embryos, which carry a loss-of-function mutation in the wnt11 gene, when tested on fibronectin-coated substrates. These differences were probably due to reduced adhesion to the fibronectin substrate as neither the overall cell morphology nor the cell elasticity grossly differed between wild-type and mutant cells. Furthermore, in the presence of inhibitors of fibronectin-integrin binding, such as RGD peptides, the adhesion force and work were strongly decreased, indicating that integrins are involved in the binding of mesendodermal progenitors in our assay. These findings demonstrate that AFM can be used to quantitatively determine the substrate-adhesion of cultured primary gastrulating cells and provide insight into the role of Wnt11 signalling in modulating cell adhesion at the single cell scale.
Genes / Markers
Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping