A customized optical trap for mechanobiological studies to elucidate the molecular basis of the viscoelastic response in nerve fibres.

We present here, a design and schematic of a single Gaussian laser beam trap built around a customized open microscope setup to carry out mechanobiological measurements on the nerve fibre of Drosophila melanogaster. In particular, the laser trap and setup is for micro stretching dissected nerve fibres from the larvae. This is achieved through the position modulation of an optically trapped bead attached to a fibre, that serves as a handle. The resultant extension of the fibre is studied by applying a stretching force following tethering of the fibre to the cover slip. We propose to carry out such measurements and obtain theviscoelastic parameters of the nerve fibre. We choose Drosophila for the following reasons:(1) It is an established genetically amenable model organism, and (2) Nerve fibres in Drosophila larvae are easily identifiable and require only simple dissections in Drosophila saline solution to be exposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]