Fragmentation is crucial for the steady-state dynamics of actin filaments

Despite the recognition that actin filaments are important for numerous cellular processes, and decades of investigation, the dynamics of in vitro actin filaments are still not completely understood. Here, we follow the time evolution of the length distribution of labeled actin reporter filaments in an unlabeled F-actin solution via fluorescence microscopy. Whereas treadmilling and diffusive length fluctuations cannot account for the observed dynamics, our results suggest that at low salt conditions, spontaneous fragmentation is crucial

Pushing nanoparticles with light - A femtonewton resolved measurement of optical scattering forces

Optomechanical manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles is an area of current interest, both fundamental and applied. However, no experimental method is available to determine the forward-directed scattering force that dominates for incident light of a wavelength close to the plasmon resonance. Here, we demonstrate how the scattering force acting on a single gold nanoparticle in solution can be measured. An optically trapped 80 nm particle was repetitively pushed from the side with laser light resonant to the particle plasmon frequency. A lock-in analysis of the particle movement provides a measured value for the scattering force. We obtain a resolution of less than 3 femtonewtons which is an order of magnitude smaller than any measurement of switchable forces performed on nanoparticles in solution with single beam optical tweezers to date. We compared the results of the force measurement with Mie simulations of the optical scattering force on a gold nanoparticle and found good agreement between experiment and theory within a few fN. (C) 2016 Author(s)

Detecting swelling states of red blood cells by "Cell-fluid coupling spectroscopy".

Red blood cells are "shaken" with a holographic optical tweezer array. The flow generated around cells due to the periodic optical forcing is measured with an optically trapped "detector" particle located in the cell vicinity. A signal-processing model that describes the cell's physical properties as an analog filter illustrates how cells can be distinguished from each other

Pushing nanoparticles with light — A femtonewton resolved measurement of optical scattering forces

Optomechanical manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles is an area of current interest, both fundamental and applied. However, no experimental method is available to determine the forward-directed scattering force that dominates for incident light of a wavelength close to the plasmon resonance. Here, we demonstrate how the scattering force acting on a single gold nanoparticle in solution can be measured. An optically trapped 80 nm particle was repetitively pushed from the side with laser light resonant to the particle plasmon frequency. A lock-in analysis of the particle movement provides a measured value for the scattering force. We obtain a resolution of less than 3 femtonewtons which is an order of magnitude smaller than any measurement of switchable forces performed on nanoparticles in solution with single beam optical tweezers to date. We compared the results of the force measurement with Mie simulations of the optical scattering force on a gold nanoparticle and found good agreement between experiment and theory within a few fN