Intracellular microrheology of motile Amoeba proteus

Biophys J. 2008 Apr 15;94(8):3313-22. doi: 10.1529/biophysj.107.123851. Epub 2008 Jan 11.

Abstract

The motility of Amoeba proteus was examined using the technique of passive particle tracking microrheology, with the aid of newly developed particle tracking software, a fast digital camera, and an optical microscope. We tracked large numbers of endogeneous particles in the amoebae, which displayed subdiffusive motion at short timescales, corresponding to thermal motion in a viscoelastic medium, and superdiffusive motion at long timescales due to the convection of the cytoplasm. Subdiffusive motion was characterized by a rheological scaling exponent of 3/4 in the cortex, indicative of the semiflexible dynamics of the actin fibers. We observed shear-thinning in the flowing endoplasm, where exponents increased with increasing flow rate; i.e., the endoplasm became more fluid-like. The rheology of the cortex is found to be isotropic, reflecting an isotropic actin gel. A clear difference was seen between cortical and endoplasmic layers in terms of both viscoelasticity and flow velocity, where the profile of the latter is close to a Poiseuille flow for a Newtonian fluid.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amoeba / physiology*
  • Animals
  • Cell Movement / physiology*
  • Elasticity
  • Intracellular Fluid / physiology*
  • Microfluidics / methods*
  • Shear Strength
  • Viscosity