ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2011
Growth cones as soft and weak force generators.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers.
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Who cites it
72 citing papers in PubMed, 135 citations in OpenAlex.
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- A simple active fluid model unites cytokinesis, cell crawling, and axonal outgrowth.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Field Guide to Traction Force Microscopy.Cellular and molecular bioengineering · 2024Review
- A simple active fluid model unites cytokinesis, cell crawling, and axonal outgrowth.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2024Article
- Interrogating the Molecular Clutch in Neuronal Growth Cones: Measuring Traction Forces, F-actin Retrograde Flow, and Point Contact Demographics.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Fibroblasts generate topographical cues that steer cancer cell migration.Science advances · 2023Article
- A new view of axon growth and guidance grounded in the stochastic dynamics of actin networks.Open biology · 2023Article
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- Alarming and Calming: Opposing Roles of S100A8/S100A9 Dimers and Tetramers on Monocytes.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2022Article
- Directed cell migration towards softer environments.Nature materials · 2022Article
- A JAM-A-tetraspanin-αvβ5 integrin complex regulates contact inhibition of locomotion.The Journal of cell biology · 2022Article
- Mechanosensitive axon outgrowth mediated by L1-laminin clutch interface.Biophysical journal · 2021Article
- Geometrical nonlinear elasticity of axon under tension: A coarse-grained computational study.Biophysical journal · 2021Article
- Adhesion of Neurons and Glial Cells with Nanocolumnar TiN Films for Brain-Machine Interfaces.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- The Atr-Chek1 pathway inhibits axon regeneration in response to Piezo-dependent mechanosensation.Nature communications · 2021Article
12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many biochemical processes in the growth cone finally target its biomechanical properties, such as stiffness and force generation, and thus permit and control growth cone movement. Despite the immense progress in our understanding of biochemical processes regulating neuronal growth, growth cone biomechanics remains poorly understood. Here, we combine different experimental approaches to measure the structural and mechanical properties of a growth cone and to simultaneously determine its actin dynamics and traction force generation. Using fundamental physical relations, we exploited these measurements to determine the internal forces generated by the actin cytoskeleton in the lamellipodium. We found that, at timescales longer than the viscoelastic relaxation time of τ = 8.5 ± 0.5 sec, growth cones show liquid-like characteristics, whereas at shorter time scales they behaved elastically with a surprisingly low elastic modulus of E = 106 ± 21 Pa. Considering the growth cone's mechanical properties and retrograde actin flow, we determined the internal stress to be on the order of 30 pN per μm(2). Traction force measurements confirmed these values. Hence, our results indicate that growth cones are particularly soft and weak structures that may be very sensitive to the mechanical properties of their environment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.