Cells have different ways to detect their surroundings and reach out to their neighbors. As Science Times previously reported, they use octopus-like tentacles called filopodia to move by twisting the inner scaffolding of the cells.
In a paper, titled "Filopodia Rotate and Coil by Actively Generating Twist in Their Actin Shaft," published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers said these structures play a crucial role in allowing cells to explore their environment, perform chemical signaling, produce mechanical forces, and convey signals via intracellular tunneling.
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The Complex Dynamics of Filopodia
Biophysicists from the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) in Denmark said that the dynamics of filopodia are quite complex. As Science Alert reported, these structures display different behaviors, like buckling, pulling, and shapeshifting.
The team explored the 3D extracellular space of these structures in their study by combining growth and shrinking with axial twisting and buckling of filopodia's core rich in actin and myosin proteins.
They compared it with the twisting and buckling motion of a rubber band that contracts when twisted and can suddenly move on its own by springing back to its original shape and untwisting configuration. The mechanism allows the tentacle-like movement of the cells to interact with other cells or microorganisms as they move.
Said core is composed of proteins called actin and myosin. The team, led by biophysicists from the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, compares this newly discovered twisting and buckling motion to a rubber band.
"They're able to bend - twist, if you will - in a way that allows them to explore the entire space around the cell, and they can even penetrate tissues in their environment," says lead author, Niels Bohr Institute biophysicist Natascha Leijnse.
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World's Best Tweezers Shed New Light on Octopus-like Tentacles of Cells
According to Science Daily, the international team of researchers credited their discovery to using the best tweezers in the world that helped them shed new light on a fundamental mechanism in all living cells, even in cancer cells.
Skilled researchers from NBI used optical tweezers to view how cells explore their surroundings and invade tissues. This unique equipment is perfect for the type of experiment they conducted because observing extraordinarily small objects is almost impossible to hold onto.
These optical tweezers can be held and moved using a laser beam that employs a wavelength carefully calibrated to the object or, in this case, the cells. Study author Poul Martin Bendix said that NBI uses the world's best optical tweezers for biomechanical studies, especially those experiments that require the use of several optical tweezers and ultra-fine microscopy.
Recent Findings Help Cancer Research
The researchers used a variety of cells to ensure that what they observed was not a one-off phenomenon. So they use human breast cancer cells and even human embryonic kidney cells. The presence of filopodia opens a new avenue when researching diseases like cancer.
According to Poul Martin Bendix, Ph.D., associate professor in biophysics at the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) at the University of Copenhagen, cells don't have a sense of sight or smell, and they only rely on filopodia to act as their sensory feelers to identify the bacterium as prey, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News reported.
The study is about filopodia being very flexible, allowing cells to explore their space and penetrate tissues surrounding them. Bendix believed that by studying it, they could understand better how cancer cells spread.
"Cancer cells are noted for their being highly invasive. And, it is reasonable to believe that they are especially dependent on the efficacy of their filopodia, in terms of examining their surroundings and facilitating their spread," Bendix explained. "So, it's conceivable that by finding ways of inhibiting the filopodia of cancer cells, cancer growth can be stalled."
Since filopodia appear to be found in all living cells, aside from cancer cells, researchers also think that the findings of the study are relevant to studying the role of filopodia in other types of cells. Like cancer research, it could play a vital role in embryonic stem cells and brain cells that are highly dependent on these structures for their development.
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