Anisotropic cellular forces support mechanical integrity of the Stratum Corneum barrier.

The protective function of biological surfaces that are exposed to the exterior of living organisms is the result of a complex arrangement and interaction of cellular components. This is the case for the most external cornified layer of skin, the stratum corneum (SC). This layer is made of corneocytes, the elementary 'flat bricks' that are held together through adhesive junctions. Despite the well-known protective role of the SC under high mechanical stresses and rapid cell turnover, the subtleties regarding the adhesion and mechanical interaction among the individual corneocytes are still poorly known. Here, we explore the adhesion of single corneocytes at different depths of the SC, by pulling them using glass microcantilevers, and measuring their detachment forces. We measured their interplanar adhesion between SC layers, and their peripheral adhesion among cells within a SC layer. Both adhesions increased considerably with depth. At the SC surface, with respect to adhesion, the corneocyte population exhibited a strong heterogeneity, where detachment forces differed by more than one order of magnitude for corneocytes located side by side. The measured detachment forces indicated that in the upper-middle layers of SC, the peripheral adhesion was stronger than the interplanar one. We conclude that the stronger peripheral adhesion of corneocytes in the SC favors an efficient barrier which would be able to resist strong stresses.

Egg CD9 protein tides correlated with sperm oscillations tune the gamete fusion ability in mammal.

Mammalian fertilization involves membrane events-adhesion, fusion, sperm engulfment, membrane block to polyspermy-whose causes remain largely unknown. Recently, specific oscillations of the sperm in contact with the egg were shown to be necessary for fusion. Using a microfluidic chip to impose the venue for the encounter of two gametes allowed real-time observation of the membrane remodelling occurring at the sperm/egg interface. The spatiotemporal mapping of egg CD9 revealed that this protein concentrates at the egg/sperm interface as a result of sperm oscillations, until a CD9-rich platform is nucleated on which fusion immediately takes place. Within 2-5 min after fusion, most of the CD9 leaves the egg for the external aqueous medium. Then an egg membrane wave engulfs the sperm head in ~25 min. These results show that sperm oscillations initiate the CD9 recruitment that causes gamete fusion after which CD9 and associated proteins leave the membrane in a process likely to contribute to block polyspermy. They highlight that the gamete fusion story in mammals is an unexpected interplay between mechanical constraints and proteins.

A specific flagellum beating mode for inducing fusion in mammalian fertilization and kinetics of sperm internalization.

The salient phases of fertilization are gamete adhesion, membrane fusion, and internalization of the spermatozoon into the oocyte but the precise timeline and the molecular, membrane and cell mechanisms underlying these highly dynamical events are far from being established. The high motility of the spermatozoa and the unpredictable location of sperm/egg fusion dramatically hinder the use of real time imaging optical techniques that should directly provide the dynamics of cell events. Using an approach based on microfluidics technology, the sperm/egg interaction zone was imaged with the best front view, and the timeline of the fertilization events was established with an unparalleled temporal accuracy from the onset of gamete contact to full sperm DNA decondensation. It reveals that a key element of the adhesion phase to initiate fusion is the oscillatory motion of the sperm head on the oocyte plasma membrane generated by a specific flagellum-beating mode. It also shows that the incorporation of the spermatozoon head is a two steps process that includes simultaneous diving, tilt, and plasma membrane degradation of the sperm head into the oocyte and subsequent DNA decondensation.

Snapshot of sequential SNARE assembling states between membranes shows that N-terminal transient assembly initializes fusion.

Many prominent biological processes are driven by protein assembling between membranes. Understanding the mechanisms then entails determining the assembling pathway of the involved proteins. Because the intermediates are by nature transient and located in the intermembrane space, this determination is generally a very difficult, not to say intractable, problem. Here, by designing a setup with sphere/plane geometry, we have been able to freeze one transient state in which the N-terminal domains of SNARE proteins are assembled. A single camera frame is sufficient to obtain the complete probability of this state with the transmembrane distance. We show that it forms when membranes are 20 nm apart and stabilizes by further assembling of the SNAREs at 8 nm. This setup that fixes the intermembrane distance, and thereby the transient states, while optically probing the level of molecular assembly by Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) can be used to characterize any other transient transmembrane complexes.

Binding of sperm protein Izumo1 and its egg receptor Juno drives Cd9 accumulation in the intercellular contact area prior to fusion during mammalian fertilization.

Little is known about the molecular mechanisms that induce gamete fusion during mammalian fertilization. After initial contact, adhesion between gametes only leads to fusion in the presence of three membrane proteins that are necessary, but insufficient, for fusion: Izumo1 on sperm, its receptor Juno on egg and Cd9 on egg. What happens during this adhesion phase is a crucial issue. Here, we demonstrate that the intercellular adhesion that Izumo1 creates with Juno is conserved in mouse and human eggs. We show that, along with Izumo1, egg Cd9 concomitantly accumulates in the adhesion area. Without egg Cd9, the recruitment kinetics of Izumo1 are accelerated. Our results suggest that this process is conserved across species, as the adhesion partners, Izumo1 and its receptor, are interchangeable between mouse and human. Our findings suggest that Cd9 is a partner of Juno, and these discoveries allow us to propose a new model of the molecular mechanisms leading to gamete fusion, in which the adhesion-induced membrane organization assembles all key players of the fusion machinery.

Interfacial pressure and phospholipid density at emulsion droplet interface using fluorescence microscopy.

Phospholipids are widely used to stabilize oil in water micron size emulsion droplets; the interfacial phospholipid density and tension of such droplets are difficult to estimate. In the present paper, we describe a simple approach by which the measurement of a micron size oil droplet interface fluorescence intensity provides directly both the interfacial phospholipid density and the interfacial tension. This method relies on two prior calibration steps: (i) the quantitative variation of the interfacial tension with fluorescence intensity at droplets interface through micro-manipulation techniques; (ii) the variation of interfacial tension with phospholipid density through monolayer isotherm. Here, we show the validity of this approach with the example of micron size oil droplets stabilized with a phosphatidylcholine phospholipid, in aqueous buffer.

Homotypic and heterotypic adhesion induced by odorant receptors and the ß2-adrenergic receptor.

In the mouse olfactory system regulated expression of a large family of G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs), the Odorant Receptors (ORs), provides each sensory neuron with a single OR identity. In the wiring of the olfactory sensory neuron projections, a complex axon sorting process ensures the segregation of >1,000 subpopulations of axons of the same OR identity into homogeneously innervated glomeruli. ORs are critical determinants in axon sorting, and their presence on olfactory axons raises the intriguing possibility that they may participate in axonal wiring through direct or indirect trans-interactions mediating adhesion or repulsion between axons. In the present work, we used a biophysical assay to test the capacity of ORs to induce adhesion of cell doublets overexpressing these receptors. We also tested the ß2 Adrenergic Receptor, a non-OR GPCR known to recapitulate the functions of ORs in olfactory axon sorting. We report here the first evidence for homo- and heterotypic adhesion between cells overexpressing the ORs MOR256-17 or M71, supporting the hypothesis that ORs may contribute to olfactory axon sorting by mediating differential adhesion between axons.

CD9 tetraspanin generates fusion competent sites on the egg membrane for mammalian fertilization.

CD9 tetraspanin is the only egg membrane protein known to be essential for fertilization. To investigate its role, we have measured, on a unique acrosome reacted sperm brought in contact with an egg, the adhesion probability and strength with a sensitivity of a single molecule attachment. Probing the binding events at different locations of wild-type egg we described different modes of interaction. Here, we show that more gamete adhesion events occur on Cd9 null eggs but that the strongest interaction mode disappears. We propose that sperm-egg fusion is a direct consequence of CD9 controlled sperm-egg adhesion properties. CD9 generates adhesion sites responsible for the strongest of the observed gamete interaction. These strong adhesion sites impose, during the whole interaction lifetime, a tight proximity of the gamete membranes, which is a requirement for fusion to take place. The CD9-induced adhesion sites would be the actual location where fusion occurs.

Mapping mouse gamete interaction forces reveal several oocyte membrane regions with different mechanical and adhesive properties.

This study focuses on the interaction involved in the adhesion of mouse gametes and on the mechanical properties of the oocyte membrane. The oocyte has an asymmetrical shape, and its membrane is composed of two distinct areas. One is rich in microvilli, and the other is smoother and without microvilli. With a biomembrane force probe (BFP) adapted to cell-cell measurements, we have quantified the separation forces between a spermatozoon and an oocyte. Microvillar and amicrovillar areas of the oocyte surface have been systematically probed and compared. In addition to a substantial difference in the elastic stiffness of these two regions, the experiments have revealed the presence of two types of membrane domains with different mechanical and adhesive properties, both distributed over the entire oocyte surface (i.e., in both microvillar and amicrovillar regions). If gamete contact occurs in the first type of domain, then the oocyte membrane deforms only elastically under traction. The pull-off forces in these domains are higher in the amicrovillar region. For a spermatozoon contact with the other type of domain, there can be a transition from the elastic to viscoelastic regime, and then tethers are extruded from the oocyte membrane.

Creation of intercellular bonds by anchoring protein ligands to membranes using the diphtheria toxin T domain.

We describe the creation of cell adhesion mediated by cell surface engineering. The Flt3-ligand was fused to a membrane anchor made of the diphtheria toxin translocation domain. The fusion protein was attached to the surface of a cell by an acid pulse. Contact with another cell expressing the receptor Flt3 lead to its activation. This activity involved direct cell-cell contact. A mean force of 20 nN was needed to separate functionalized cells after 5 min of contact. Overall, we showed that it is possible to promote specific cell-cell adhesion by attaching protein ligands at the surface of cells.

Specific and non specific interactions involving Le( X ) determinant quantified by lipid vesicle micromanipulation.

Carbohydrate-carbohydrate recognition is emerging today as an important type of interaction in cell adhesion. One Ca(2+)mediated homotypic interaction between two Lewis( X ) determinants (Le( X )) has been proposed to drive cell adhesion in murine embryogenesis. Here, the adhesion energies of lipid vesicles functionalized with glycolipids bearing monomeric or dimeric Le( X ) determinants were measured in NaCl or CaCl(2) media with the micropipette aspiration technique. These experiments on Le( X ) with an environment akin to that provided by biological membrane confirmed the existence of this specific calcium dependent interaction of monomeric Le( X ). In contrast, dimeric Le( X ) produced a repulsive contribution. By using a simple model involving the various contributions to the adhesion free energy, specific and non specific interactions could be separated and quantified. The involvement of calcium ions has been discussed in the monomeric and dimeric Le( X ) lipids.

Structure and properties of hydrophobically end-capped poly(ethylene oxide) solutions in the presence of monovalent and divalent cations.

Hydrophobically modified poly(ethylene oxide), HMPEO, was studied in concentrated salt solutions. The influence of salts was compared to the effect of temperature on poly(ethylene oxide), PEO. As expected, the addition of monovalent cations (Na(+), K(+)) has the same effect as an increase in temperature in agreement with the thermodynamic properties of PEO: a decrease in solubility, micelle size, and viscosity was observed. Moreover, the intensity of neutron scattering peaks (characteristic of the semi-dilute solutions of these associative polymers) increases due to the collapse of PEO coronae in micelles. Very peculiar behavior was observed in the presence of divalent cations (Ca(2+), Mg(2+)): larger micelle aggregates and higher viscosities, relaxation times, and activation energies were observed by dynamic rheology. This behavior is attributed to interactions between divalent cations and oxygen in PEO backbones close to the micelle core, which may reinforce intermicellar bridges.