Probing cell biophysical behavior based on actin cytoskeleton modeling and stretching manipulation with optical tweezers

This letter presents an approach to utilizing the actin cytoskeleton model and optical tweezers technology to probe the distinct underlying F-actin remodeling mechanism and showing quantitatively how cell mechanical behavior is associated with alterations in the cell functions. The structural parameters of F-actin were extracted by fitting the modeling results with the experimental results obtained by cell stretching manipulation. Alterations of cell mechanical behaviors under distinct diseased cellular stages were further interpreted. Jurkat and K562 cells were used as sample cells. This letter successfully illustrates the correlation of the cell mechanical behavior and cell functional alterations in a quantitative way. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.