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  • Open Access

Two dominant timescales of cytoskeletal crosslinking in the viscoelastic response of the cytoplasm

Ora T. Cohen and Adam G. Hendricks

  • Department of Bioengineering, McGill University, Montréal H3A 0E9, Canada

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Phys. Rev. Research 4, 043167 – Published 6 December, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.043167

Abstract

Cells precisely regulate their frequency-dependent viscoelastic properties in response to chemical and mechanical cues. We use optical trap-based active microrheology using intracellular probes to measure the cytoplasmic mechanical response of fibroblast and macrophage cells over a broad frequency range (∼0.02–350 Hz). Both cell types show similar frequency-dependent behavior, suggesting that the mechanisms that control the cell's mechanical response are general to many cell types. At frequencies above 1 Hz, the cytoplasmic mechanical behavior shows a broad distribution of relaxation timescales consistent with power-law mechanics. At low frequencies (<1 Hz), cells exhibit fluidlike behavior with distinct relaxation timescales, similar to that observed in reconstituted networks of transiently crosslinked actin filaments. The response across all frequencies can be captured by a mathematical model combining a power-law term with two crosslinker-unbinding terms. The two unbinding rates required to describe the low-frequency response suggest that the viscoelastic relaxation of the cytoplasm is governed either by multiple dominant crosslinkers or by a single crosslinker with multiple states.

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Phys. Rev. Research 4, 043167– Published 6 December, 2022
  • Received 30 July 2022
  • Accepted 13 November 2022
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