This work on one-cell embryos is set to shift our understanding of the mechanisms that underpin cellular behavior in general, and may ultimately provide insights into what goes wrong in aging and disease.The research, led by Professor Tony Perry from the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, involved injecting a silicon-based nanodevice together with sperm into the egg cell of a mouse.

Credit: Professor Tony Perry.

“This is the first glimpse of the physics of any cell on this scale from within,” said Professor Perry.

The activity within a cell determines how that cell functions, explains Professor Perry.

“The behavior of intracellular matter is probably as influential to cell behavior as gene expression,” he said.

As a result, scientists have been able to identify the elements that make up a cell, but not how the cell interior behaves as a whole.

“From studies in biology and embryology, we know about certain molecules and cellular phenomena, and we have woven this information into a reductionist narrative of how things work, but now this narrative is changing,” said Professor Perry.

“Sometimes the devices were pitched and twisted by forces that were even greater than those inside muscle cells,” said Professor Perry.

The results add to an emerging picture of biology that suggests material inside a living cell is not static, but instead changes its properties in a pre-ordained way as the cell performs its function or responds to the environment.

Perry, 25 May 2020, Nature Materials.

The study is published this week in Nature Materials and involved a trans-disciplinary partnership between embryologists in Bath and the USA led by Professor Perry, and materials scientists and physicists led by Professor José Antonio Plaza at the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Barcelona (IMB-CNM) in Spain

May 27, 2020

May 27, 2020

May 27, 2020

May 27, 2020