Study of Mechanical Properties of Sub-micron ECM in Live Zebrafish Using Brillouin Scattering (CAT#: STEM-ST-0127-YJL)

Introduction

At the heart of tissue morphogenesis lies a tight coordination between patterns in mechanical properties and signaling molecules that together determine cell fate and shape. Mechanical properties in cells and tissues are determined by the cytoskeleton and the extracellular matrix (ECM). Differences in ECM stiffness have been shown to be sufficient to determine cell fates. Furthermore, in textbook examples of organ elongation, such as germband extension in Drosophila or neural plate extension in vertebrates, the mechanical anisotropies that instruct shape are known to be generated within the cell's cytoskeleton.
Zebrafish have several advantages compared to other vertebrate models used in modeling human diseases, particularly for large-scale genetic mutant and therapeutic compound screenings, and other biomedical research applications.