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SUMMARY:Harnessing Shape Fluctuations to Probe the Mechanics of Stress Gra
 nules in Live Cells - Sushma Grellscheid (Universitetet i Bergen)
DTSTART:20231013T103000Z
DTEND:20231013T112000Z
UID:TALK204925@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:Jack O. Law1+\, Carl M. Jones1\,3+\, Thomas Stevenson1\, Thoma
 s A. Williamson2\, Matthew S. Turner4\, Halim Kusumaatmaja2*\, Sushma N. G
 rellscheid1\,3*.\n1 Computational Biology Unit and Dept. of Biological Sci
 ences\, University of Bergen\, Norway\n2 Dept. of Physics\, University of 
 Durham\, United Kingdom\n3 Dept. of Biosciences\, University of Durham\, U
 nited Kingdom\n4 Dept. of Physics\, University of Warwick\, United Kingdom
 \n+ These authors contributed equally.\n* Corresponding authors&rsquo\; Em
 ails:&nbsp\; halim.kusumaatmaja@durham.ac.uk\, sushma.grellscheid@uib.no\n
 Abstract\nSurface tension plays a significant role in governing the dynami
 cs of droplet coalescence and determining how condensates interact with an
 d deform lipid membranes and biological filaments. However\, approaches fo
 r studying them in-situ in living cells under physiologically relevant con
 ditions are not yet well established.\nThrough an interdisciplinary collab
 oration between cell biology and theoretical soft matter physics groups\, 
 we developed a high-throughput flicker spectroscopy approach to calculate 
 the surface tension of thousands of condensates inside living cells. Demon
 strating this approach on stress granules\, we discovered firstly that a s
 urface tension-only model is inadequate for describing stress granules in 
 live cells. We find that the measured fluctuation spectra require an addit
 ional bending rigidity parameter\, which had previously not been described
  for any biomolecular condensate. Secondly\, we show that stress granules 
 do not have a spherical base-shape but fluctuate around a more irregular g
 eometry. Taken together\, these results demonstrate quantitatively that th
 e mechanics of stress granules clearly suggest that stress granules are vi
 scoelastic droplets with a structured interface.\n&nbsp\;\nThe approach ca
 n distinguish between stress granules induced by different chemicals or un
 der different stoichiometries of constituent proteins\, based on their cha
 racteristic distributions of surface tension and bending rigidity values. 
 The measured surface tensions and bending rigidities span a range of sever
 al orders of magnitude. As such\, different types of stress granules (and 
 more generally\, other biomolecular condensates) can only be differentiate
 d via large-scale surveys.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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