Journal article
Transepithelial potential difference governs epithelial homeostasis by electromechanics
TB Saw, X Gao, M Li, J He, AP Le, S Marsh, KH Lin, A Ludwig, J Prost, CT Lim
Nature Physics | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Published : 2022
Abstract
Studies of electric effects in biological systems, from the work on action potential to studies on limb regeneration or wound healing, commonly focus on transitory behaviour and not on addressing the question of homeostasis. Here we use a microfluidic device to study how the homeostasis of confluent epithelial tissues is modified when a transepithelial potential difference that is different from the natural one is imposed on an epithelial layer. When the field direction matches the natural one, we can restore perfect confluence in an epithelial layer turned defective either by E-cadherin knockout or by weakening the cell–substrate adhesion; additionally, the tissue pushes on the substrate wi..
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Awarded by Human Frontier Science Program
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank M. Bornens, F. Julicher and C. Duclut for scientific discussions; C.J. Chan for critical reading of the manuscript; X. Yong for help with the experiments; D. Bhattacharjee for help with the COMSOL simulations; K. Fong-Ngern for help with the Transwell measurements; K.S. Robinson, B. Ladoux and W.J. Nelson for their cell lines; and I. Yow for help with the FUCCI lentiviral transfection. We also thank the MBI's Wetlab, Microscopy and Microfabrication cores for support. T.B.S. acknowledges support from the Lee Kuan Yew Postdoctoral fellowship and Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 1 Academic Research Fund (grant R-397-000-320-114), and Westlake Education Foundation. X.G. acknowledges the support of the ARC Centre for Personalised Therapeutics Technologies (Australian Research Council, grant IC170100016). C.T.L. is supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore, under the Mechanobiology Institute at the National University of Singapore, the Human Frontier Science Program (grant LIP000635/2018), and the Institute for Health Innovation and Technology at NUS.