细胞牵引力显微镜反演方法研究进展

细胞与胞外基质微环境的物理力学相互作用涉及许多复杂的生物信号转导通路,对于细胞的增殖、分化、收缩、迁移和凋亡等都起着重要的调控作用。在单细胞水平上,运用细胞牵引力显微镜方法定量研究细胞活动规律及特点具有重要的生理病理学意义。牵引力显微镜方法的核心在于如何通过基底变形信息反演得到细胞牵引力场。本文首先介绍细胞牵引力反演方法的基本原理,然后针对细胞牵引力求解过程中所涉及到的反问题的病态本性,重点介绍近十几年来细胞牵引力反演算法的研究进展(包括边界元反演算法、基于集中力假设的反演算法、基于积分Boussinesq解的反演算法、基于傅立叶变换的反演算法、基于最优滤波的反演算法等)。

Recent Progress in Cellular Traction Force Microscopy Inversion Methods

Physical and mechanical interaction between cell and extracellular matrix in a microenvironment involves a large number of complex signaling transduction pathways, so it plays a key role in mediating cellular behaviors and functions such as cell proliferation, differentiation, contraction, migration and apoptosis. It is very important, both physiologically and pathologically, to quantitatively characterizing single cell activities based upon cellular traction force microscopy (CTFM). The core of CTFM consists in how to retrieve cellular traction force field from the measured substrate deformation data. This paper presents first an introduction about the principle of CTFM, and then point out the pathological nature of cellular traction inversion. Accordingly, some well-developed traction force inversion algorithms are specifically introduced, including: boundary element method (DW method), traction reconstruction with point forces (TRPF method), cellular traction recovery method based on an integral Boussinesq solution, Fourier transform traction cytometry (FTTC method), and optimal filtering method in two-dimensional Fourier space.