Forces play diverse roles in vascular development, homeostasis and disease. VE-cadherin at endothelial cell-cell junctions links the contractile acto-myosin cytoskeletons of adjacent cells, serving as a tension-transducer. To explore tensile changes across VE-cadherin in live zebrafish, we tailored an optical biosensor approach, originally established in vitro. We validate localization and function of a VE-cadherin tension sensor (TS) in vivo. Changes in tension across VE-cadherin observed using ratio-metric or lifetime FRET measurements reflect acto-myosin contractility within endothelial cells. Furthermore, we apply the TS to reveal biologically relevant changes in VE-cadherin tension that occur as the dorsal aorta matures and upon genetic and chemical perturbations during embryonic development.
CITATION STYLE
Lagendijk, A. K., Gomez, G. A., Baek, S., Hesselson, D., Hughes, W. E., Paterson, S., … Hogan, B. M. (2017). Live imaging molecular changes in junctional tension upon VE-cadherin in zebrafish. Nature Communications, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01325-6
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