Table 3.
Summary of the investigations of the mechanical role of IF networks at the cellular level
| Type of IF | Cell type | Technique | Cellular elements probed |
Effect of the lack or the disruption of the vimentin network at the cellular scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vimentin (Eckes et al., 1998) |
Primary fibroblasts from vimentin KO rats |
Rotational force magnetic twisting cytometer (Wang & Ingber, 1994) |
Cell cortex submitted to large strains |
Cortical rigidity lower of 40% |
| Collagen lattice contraction (Mendez et al., 2014) |
Cells contractile machinery |
Contractions forces developed by vim - /-cells significantly reduced |
||
| Vimentin (Wang & Stamenovic, 2000) |
Primary fibroblasts from vimentin KO rats Primary fibroblasts from WT rats and endothelial cells acrylamide treated |
Rotational force magnetic twisting cytometer (Wang & Ingber, 1994) |
Cell cortex submitted to different ranges of strain |
Reduce ability to stiffen the cortex in response to applied forces and global cortex stiffness lower, at large strains. These effects are amplified when the magnitude of the cell strain increase. |
| Vimentin (Guo et al., 2013) |
Primary fibroblasts from vimentin KO mice |
Optical magnetic twisting cytometry (Fabry et al., 2001) |
Cell cortex submitted to low strains |
No effect on cells cortical rigidity |
| Optical tweezers | Cytoplasm | Intracytoplasmic rigidity of cell reduced by about a factor 2 |
||
| Vimentin (Gladilin et al., 2014) |
Natural killer cells treated with withaferin A |
Microfluidic optical stretcher (Guck et al., 2001) |
Whole cell submitted to large strain |
Global cell softening of about 20% |
| Vimentin (Brown et al., 2001) |
T lymphocytes treated with Calyculin A |
High G-force centrifugation (Mege, Capo, Benoliel, Foa, & Bongrand, 1985) |
Whole cell submitted to large strain |
Whole cell deformability increased by about 40% |
| Vimentin (Haudenschild et al., 2011) |
Primary human articular chondrocytes |
Straining of cells embedded in alginate gels |
Whole cell submitted to large strain |
Softening of the entire cell by a factor 3 |
| Vimentin (Rathje et al., 2014) |
Immortalized human skin fibroblasts expressing simian virus 40 large T antigen |
Colloidal probe force-mode AFM (Ducker et al., 1991) |
Local cortex or cytoplasm in function of indentation depth |
Cytoplasmic Young's modulus increased locally by 2 times |
| Vimentin (Plodinec et al., 2011) |
Rat-2 fibroblasts expressing L345P mutated desmin |
AFM | Local cortex or cytoplasm in function of indentation depth |
Perinuclear stiffening of the cytoplasm |
| Desmin (Bonakdar et al., 2012) |
Primary human fibroblasts from patients carrying the R350P desmin mutation |
Magnetic tweezers (Kollmannsberger & Fabry, 2007) |
Cell cortex locally submitted to different ranges of strain |
Cortical stiffness increased by 2 times Cortical stiffening 3 times lower after repeated straining of the cell |
| Keratins (Beil et al., 2003) |
Human pancreatic epithelial tumor cells treated with sphingosylphosphorylcholine |
Parallel microplate cell stretcher |
Whole cell | Cells elastic moduli decreased by 40% |
| Migration through size-limited pores |
Whole cell | Cells deformability significantly increased |
||
| Keratins (Seltmann et al., 2013) |
Primary keratinocytes from KO mice lacking all keratins |
Optical stretcher (Lincoln et al., 2007) |
Whole cell | Cells deformability increased by about 60% |
| Keratins (Sivaramakrishnan et al., 2008) |
Keratinocyte cell line KtyII−/− |
AFM | Cytoplasm | Cytoplasmic Young modulus above cell nucleus is lowered by about 40 % |
| Magnetic tweezers | Cytoplasm | Cytoplasmic viscosity is 40% weaker |
||
| Neuro- filaments (Grevesse et al., 2015) |
Primary rat cortical neurons |
Magnetic tweezers | Neurites vs. soma |
NF-rich neurites are both stiffer and more viscous than the soma |