Session Y38: Focus Session: Non-Equilibrium Insights into Single Molecules and Cell Function II

Can Simple Biophysical Principles Yield Complicated Biological Functions?

About once a year, a new regulatory paradigm is discovered in cell biology. As of last count, eukaryotic cells have more than 40 distinct ways of regulating protein concentration and function. Regulatory possibilities include site-specific phosphorylation, epigenetics, alternative splicing, mRNA (re)localization, and modulation of nucleo-cytoplasmic transport. This raises a simple question. Do all the remarkable things cells do, require an intricately choreographed supporting cast of hundreds of molecular machines and associated signaling networks? Alternatively, are there a few simple biophysical principles that can generate apparently very complicated cellular behaviors and functions? I'll discuss two problems, spatial organization of the bacterial chemotaxis system and nucleo-cytoplasmic transport, where the latter might be true. In both cases, the ability to precisely quantify biological organization and function, at the single-molecule level, helped to find signatures of basic biological organizing principles.   

Single-Molecule Analysis of Protein Large-Amplitude Conformational Transitions

Proteins have evolved to harness thermal fluctuations, rather than frustrated by them, to carry out chemical transformations and mechanical work. What are, then, the operation and design principles of protein machines? To frame the problem in a tractable way, several basic questions have been formulated to guide the experimental design: (a) How many conformational states can a protein sample on the functionally important timescale? (b) What are the inter-conversion rates between states? (c) How do ligand binding or interactions with other proteins modulate the motions? (d) What are the structural basis of flexibility and its underlying molecular mechanics? Guided by this framework, we have studied protein tyrosine phosphatase B, PtpB, from M. tuberculosis (a virulence factor of tuberculosis and a potential drug target) and adenylate kinase, AK, from E. coli (a ubiquitous energy-balancing enzyme in cells). These domain movements have been followed in real time on their respective catalytic timescales using high-resolution single-molecule F\"{o}rster resonance energy transfer (FRET) spectroscopy. It is shown quantitatively that both PtpB and AK are capable of dynamically sampling two distinct states that correlate well with those observed by x-ray crystallography. Integrating these microscopic dynamics into macroscopic kinetics allows us to place the experimentally measured free-energy landscape in the context of enzymatic turnovers.   

Unfolding proteins with mechanical forces: From toy models to atomistic simulations

The remarkable combination of strength and toughness, displayed by certain biological materials (e.g. spider silk) and often unmatched by artificial materials, is believed to originate from the mechanical response of individual load-bearing protein domains. Single-molecule pulling experiments carried out during the last decade showed that those proteins, when loaded, respond in a non-equilibrium fashion and can dissipate large amounts of energy though the breaking of sacrificial bonds. In my talk, I will discuss what structural properties correlate with mechanical strength and toughness at the single-molecule level, how thermodynamic stability is related to the mechanical stability, and why both atomistic simulations and simple models seem to fail to reconcile the mechanical responses of the same proteins measured under varied loading regimes. I will further discuss whether it is easier to unfold a protein mechanically by pulling at its ends or by threading it through a narrow pore. The latter process is believed to commonly occur in living organisms as an intermediate step in protein degradation.   

Non-equilibrium microrheology of living cells

Intracellular stresses generated by molecular motors can actively modify cytoskeletal network and change intracellular mechanical properties. We study the out-of-equilibrium microrheology in living cells using endogenous organelle particles as probes. This paper reports measurements of the intracellular mechanical properties using passive, particle-tracking and active, optical tweezers-based microrheology approaches. Using arguments based on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, we compared the results from both approaches to distinguish thermal and non-thermal mechanical fluctuations in living cells.   

Dissecting the heterogeneity of gene expressions in mouse embryonic stem cells

A population of genetically identical cells, of the same nominal cell type, and cultured in the same petri dish, will nevertheless often exhibit varying patterns of gene expression. Taking mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells as a model system, we use immunofluorescence and flow cytometry to examine in detail the distribution of expression levels for various transcription factors key to the maintenance of the ES cell identity. We find the population-level distribution of many proteins, once rescaled by the average expression level, have very similar shapes. This suggest the largest component of observed heterogeneity comes from a single source. More subtly, we find the expression many of genes appears to modulate with the cell cycle. This may suggest that the program for maintaining ES cell identity is tightly coupled to the cell cycle machinery.   

Synchronization of Cell Cycle Oscillator by Multi-pulse Chemical Perturbations

Oscillators underlie biological rhythms in various organisms and provide a timekeeping mechanism. Cell cycle oscillator, for example, controls the progression of cell cycle stage and drives cyclic reproduction in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The understanding of the underlying nonlinear regulatory network allows experimental design of external perturbations to interact and control cell cycle oscillation. We have previously demonstrated in experiment and in simulation that the cell cycle coherence of a model bacterium can be progressively tuned by the level of a histidine kinase. Here, we present our recent effort to synchronize the division of a population of bacterium cells by external pulsatile chemical perturbations. We were able to synchronize the cell population by phase-locking approach: the external oscillator (i.e. periodic perturbation) entrains the internal cell cycle oscillator which is in analogous to the phase-locking of circadian clock to external light/dark oscillator. We explored the ranges of frequencies for two external oscillators of different amplitudes where phase-locking occurred. To our surprise, non-periodic chemical perturbations could also cause synchronization of a cell population, suggesting a Markovian cell cycle oscillation dynamics.   

Analysis of Cell Cycle Phase Response Captures the Synchronization Phenomena and Reveals a Novel Cell Cycle Network Topology

Cell cycle progression requires a succession of temporally-regulated sub-processes, including chromosome replication and cell division, which are each controlled by their own regulatory modules. The modular design of cell cycle regulatory network allows robust environmental responses and evolutionary adaptations. It is emerging that some of the cell cycle modules involve their own autonomous periodic dynamics. As a consequence, the realization of robust coordination among these modules becomes challenging since each module could potentially run out of sync. We believe that an insight into this puzzle resides in the coupling between the contributing regulatory modules. Here, we measured the phase response curve (PRC) of the cell cycle oscillator by driving the expression of a master regulator of the cell cycle in a pulsatile manner and measuring the single cell phase response. We constructed a return map that quantitatively explains the synchronization phenomena that were caused by periodic chemical perturbation. To capture the measured phase response, we derived a minimalist coupled oscillator model that generalizes the basic topology of the cell cycle network. This diode-like coupling suggests that the cell is engineered to ensure complete coordination of constituent events with the cell cycle.   

Swimming Response of Individual Paramecia to Variable Forces

Experiments demonstrate that swimming paramecia exhibit a negative force-kinetic response. In particular, upward swimming paramecia exert a stronger propulsive force as they fight their tendency to sediment. This response is remarkable because it suggests that paramecia can sense forces as small as their apparent weight, which is less than 100 pN. We are investigating the origins of this response by applying variable magnetic forces to individual swimming paramecia and measuring how their swimming trajectories change. We conduct the experiments at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory where it is possible to achieve forces sufficient to stall the swimmers. We will present our latest data on how paramecia adjust the geometry of their helical trajectories under varying forces.