Lasers put cells in a whirl

17 Jun 2002

US scientists claim to be the first in the world to rotate single cells with an ultraviolet laser.

Partha Roy from the University of North Carolina and colleagues Ken Jacobson and Zenon Rajfur, have forced cells to rotate by manipulating the proteins within a single cell with an ultraviolet laser. Their "laser technique" holds huge potential to help scientists understand the way cells move.

The researchers placed samples of fish cells that contained so-called caged proteins under a microscope. By directing a helium cadmium ultraviolet laser at the proteins, the scientists were able to break their molecular bonds to activate them. On doing this, Roy and his colleagues discovered that the cells first pivoted about the irradiated region before breaking free to continue turning in the same direction.

Past techniques have relied on more time-consuming genetic approaches to encourage cell-turning, but Roy and his colleagues hope that their latest work will change this. "We believe we are the first laboratory to manipulate proteins at single cell levels," Roy said. "This is good as it means we can now study cell locomotion over real-time and space."

According to Roy, the team used fish cells because they are ideal for locomotion studies, but the technique will work with any, including human cells. "We think this opens up a lot of possibilities for learning what many signaling molecules do inside cells and has important implications for drug discovery," he added. "In some cases you may want to speed up cell movement to treat coronary artery disease, but on the other hand you would want to stop the movement of cancer cells."

The researchers now plan to extend their laser technique to different sets of proteins so that they can study more and more biological phenomena.