Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Poster Abstracts

104-POS Board 52 Visualizing Mitochondrial Dynamics and Cellular States with Environmentally Sensitive Fluorescence Probes Sufi O. Raja 1 , Gandhi Sivaraman 1 , Ananya Mukherjee 1 , Shikha Sharma 1 , Sunny Kataria 2 , Akash Gulyani 1 . 1 Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Bengaluru, India, 2 National Center for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, India. Mitochondria are known as power house of the cell as they efficiently produce ATP through Oxidative Phosphorylation (OxPhos). Apart from this, mitochondria also play significant role in regulating cellular metabolism, calcium and ROS signaling as well as in programmed cell death. Despite decades on research, precise and real-time information on mitochondrial dynamics and functionality, is still limiting. For example, recently it has been shown that cellular migration during metastasis relies, in part, on mitochondrial motility and precise positioning within the cell. Similarly, morphology and activity of mitochondria are linked with maintenance of stemness as well as triggering of differentiation event. Therefore, unraveling the spatio-temporal localization as well as functional heterogeneity of mitochondria during various cellular states appears to be crucial for understanding the coherent behavior of cell. To better visualize the functional dynamics of mitochondrion, we have developed red-emitting, multi-functional, novel mitochondrial probes that are sensitive to local environment, specifically parameters like viscosity, pH, ROS, etc. The developed dyes have low toxicity and very high photo-stability, allowing their use in long term imaging. In this presentation, we will show these dyes have yielded new insights into mitochondrial dynamics in embryonic stem cells as well as onset of differentiation. In a different example, we have also used our new dyes to probe mitochondrial heterogeneity within primary ‘activated’ cells during cell migration. These results would be placed in the context of our larger efforts to build new ways of probing ‘cellular dynamics’ with a focus on physico-chemical changes in the cell.

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