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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Cell Mol Bioeng. 2014 Jun 20;7(3):293–306. doi: 10.1007/s12195-014-0342-y

Figure 2. Nuclear deformation during migration through narrow constrictions.

Figure 2

a) Time-lapse image sequence of NIH 3T3 cells expressing fluorescently tagged Histone-4 (red) and actin (green) migrating through a 3 μm wide constriction, revealing substantial nuclear deformation. Scale bar: 20 μm. b) Top-view and cross-sections of a confocal 3-D reconstruction of a cell migrating through a 3 μm-wide constriction, stained for DNA (blue) and F-actin (green). The cross-sections (right) demonstrate that the cell takes up the entire height of the device and that the nucleus fills out the constriction. Scale bar: 5 μm. White arrow denotes direction of migration. c) Confocal 3-D reconstruction of a cell expressing GFP-lamin A migrating through a 2 μm-wide constriction. The cross-section through the constriction (II) suggests compression and buckling of the nuclear lamina inside the constriction. Scale bar: 5 μm. d) Confocal top- and side-view of a single cell entering the 5 μm tall constriction channel inside the migration device. The channels were filled with fluorescently labeled dextran (red; left images) and cells were stained for DNA (blue) and expressed fluorescent actin (green). As the cell enters the 5 μm tall channel, the cell and nuclear height adjusts to the available height of the channel (compare bottom left and right images). Scale bar: 10 μm.