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Quantitative Bio-Imaging Tools to Dissect the Interplay of Membrane and Cytoskeletal Actin Dynamics in Immune Cells
Falk Schneider1, Huw Colin-York1,2, Marco Fritzsche1,2,3
1Medical Research Council (MRC) Human Immunology Unit, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Insights
Understanding the interplay between the plasma membrane and actin cytoskeleton is crucial for immune cell function. New optical technologies offer novel ways to study these dynamics and their coupling in immune cells.
Area of Science:
- Cell Biology
- Immunology
- Biophysics
Background:
- Cellular functions depend on the dynamic interplay between the plasma membrane and the actin cytoskeleton.
- This relationship is vital in immune cells for organizing and potentiating immune signaling.
- A gap exists in understanding how these dynamics are coupled and influence immune cell function.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review optical technologies for investigating simultaneous plasma membrane and cytoskeleton dynamics.
- To focus on applications and insights within immune cells.
- To provide a guide to spatio-temporal scales and novel probes for these dynamics.
Main Methods:
- Review of recent optical technologies.
- Analysis of novel probes and labels.
- Discussion of quantitative biophysical tools.
Main Results:
- Optical technologies can simultaneously investigate cytoskeleton and membrane dynamics.
- Novel probes and labels offer insights into these dynamics.
- Quantitative biophysical tools provide a route to uncover their relationship.
Conclusions:
- New optical and biophysical tools are essential for understanding membrane-cytoskeleton interplay in immune cells.
- Investigating these coupled dynamics offers insights into immune cell function.
- This review guides researchers in applying these technologies to immune cell biology.
Abstract:
Cellular function is reliant on the dynamic interplay between the plasma membrane and the actin cytoskeleton. This critical relationship is of particular importance in immune cells, where both the cytoskeleton and the plasma membrane work in concert to organize and potentiate immune signaling events. Despite their importance, there remains a critical gap in understanding how these respective dynamics are coupled, and how this coupling in turn may influence immune cell function from the bottom up. In this review, we highlight recent optical technologies that could provide strategies to investigate the simultaneous dynamics of both the cytoskeleton and membrane as well as their interplay, focusing on current and future applications in immune cells. We provide a guide of the spatio-temporal scale of each technique as well as highlighting novel probes and labels that have the potential to provide insights into membrane and cytoskeletal dynamics. The quantitative biophysical tools presented here provide a new and exciting route to uncover the relationship between plasma membrane and cytoskeletal dynamics that underlies immune cell function.
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