Ying-chun Chen and Chien-ming Wu
In recent years, optical tweezers have become one of the tools to measure the mechanical properties of living cells. In this study, we first constructed an optical tweezers to investigate the cytoplasmic viscosity of immune cells. In addition to measuring viscosity of cells in a normal condition, we also treated cells with anti-cancer drug, Paclitaxel, and in order to study its effect on the cytoplasmic viscosity. The results showed that the viscosity decreased dramatically during the first 3 h. After 3 h, the change started to slow down and it remained nearly flat by the end of the experiment. In addition, we used the confocal laser scanning microscope to observe the cytoskeleton of the cell after drug treatment for 3 and 5 h, respectively, and found that actin filaments were disrupted and that the nucleus had disintegrated in some drug-treated cells, similar to the process of apoptosis. This study presents a new way for measuring the changes in cytoplasmic viscosity, and to determine if a cell is going into apoptosis as a result of a drug treatment.
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