Measuring fast stochastic displacements of bio-membranes with dynamic optical displacement spectroscopy

C. Monzel, D. Schmidt, C. Kleusch, D. Kirchenbüchler, U. Seifert, Smith A-S, K. Sengupta () and R. Merkel ()
Additional contact information
C. Monzel: Institute of Complex Systems 7 (ICS-7): Biomechanics, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
D. Schmidt: Institut für Theoretische Physik, and the Excellence Cluster: Engineering of Advanced Materials, Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
C. Kleusch: Institute of Complex Systems 7 (ICS-7): Biomechanics, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
D. Kirchenbüchler: Institute of Complex Systems 7 (ICS-7): Biomechanics, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
U. Seifert: II. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Fakultät 8: Mathematik und Physik, Universität Stuttgart
Smith A-S: Institut für Theoretische Physik, and the Excellence Cluster: Engineering of Advanced Materials, Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
K. Sengupta: Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Centre Interdisciplinaire de Nanoscience de Marseille UMR 7325
R. Merkel: Institute of Complex Systems 7 (ICS-7): Biomechanics, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Stochastic displacements or fluctuations of biological membranes are increasingly recognized as an important aspect of many physiological processes, but hitherto their precise quantification in living cells was limited due to a lack of tools to accurately record them. Here we introduce a novel technique—dynamic optical displacement spectroscopy (DODS), to measure stochastic displacements of membranes with unprecedented combined spatiotemporal resolution of 20 nm and 10 μs. The technique was validated by measuring bending fluctuations of model membranes. DODS was then used to explore the fluctuations in human red blood cells, which showed an ATP-induced enhancement of non-Gaussian behaviour. Plasma membrane fluctuations of human macrophages were quantified to this accuracy for the first time. Stimulation with a cytokine enhanced non-Gaussian contributions to these fluctuations. Simplicity of implementation, and high accuracy make DODS a promising tool for comprehensive understanding of stochastic membrane processes.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9162 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms9162

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9162

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().