ArticleScience advances2021
Pinching the cortex of live cells reveals thickness instabilities caused by myosin II motors.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- The actomyosin cortex controls t-tubule remodeling in skeletal muscle.Science advances · 2026Article
- The membrane-to-cortex distance regulates mDia1 activity to control cortical mechanics.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Stiff matrix-induced KRTAP2-3 expression suppresses ciliogenesis via actin tension-driven chromatin remodeling.Cell death & disease · 2026Article
- Optogenetic actin network assembly on lipid bilayer uncovers the network density-dependent functions of actin-binding proteins.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Data-driven analysis for the evaluation of cortical mechanics of non-adherent cells.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Ezrin, radixin, and moesin are dispensable for macrophage migration and cellular cortex mechanics.The EMBO journal · 2024Article
- The structure and mechanics of the cell cortex depend on the location and adhesion state.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Evidence and therapeutic implications of biomechanically regulated immunosurveillance in cancer and other diseases.Nature nanotechnology · 2024Review
- Quantifying both viscoelasticity and surface tension: Why sharp tips overestimate cell stiffness.Biophysical journal · 2024Article
- A Magnetic Pincher for the Dynamic Measurement of the Actin Cortex Thickness in Live Cells.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Dynamics of cell rounding during detachment.iScience · 2023Article
- How dynamic prestress governs the shape of living systems, from the subcellular to tissue scale.Interface focus · 2022Review
- WASp triggers mechanosensitive actin patches to facilitate immune cell migration in dense tissues.Developmental cell · 2022Article
- PINCH1 Promotes Fibroblast Migration in Extracellular Matrices and Influences Their Mechanophenotype.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
- Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The cell cortex is a contractile actin meshwork, which determines cell shape and is essential for cell mechanics, migration, and division. Because its thickness is below optical resolution, there is a tendency to consider the cortex as a thin uniform two-dimensional layer. Using two mutually attracted magnetic beads, one inside the cell and the other in the extracellular medium, we pinch the cortex of dendritic cells and provide an accurate and time-resolved measure of its thickness. Our observations draw a new picture of the cell cortex as a highly dynamic layer, harboring large fluctuations in its third dimension because of actomyosin contractility. We propose that the cortex dynamics might be responsible for the fast shape-changing capacity of highly contractile cells that use amoeboid-like migration.
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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.