A Comparative Mechanical Analysis of Plant and Animal Cells Reveals Convergence across Kingdoms

Abstract

Plant and animals have evolved different strategies for their development. Whether this is linked to major differences in their cell mechanics remains unclear, mainly because measurements on plant and animal cells relied on independent experiments and setups, thus hindering any direct comparison. In this study we used the same micro-rheometer to compare animal and plant single cell rheology. We found that wall-less plant cells exhibit the same weak power law rheology as animal cells, with comparable values of elastic and loss moduli. Remarkably, microtubules primarily contributed to the rheological behavior of wall-less plant cells whereas rheology of animal cells was mainly dependent on the actin network. Thus, plant and animal cells evolved different molecular strategies to reach a comparable cytoplasmic mechanical core, suggesting that evolutionary convergence could include the internal biophysical properties of cells.

Mapping intracellular mechanics on micropatterned substrates

“…However, models based on a finite number of viscoelastic elements and corresponding relaxation times are no longer considered to be well adapted to describe cell mechanics and many more elaborate theoretical models have been proposed, including glassy rheology (45,52), poroelasticity (53), or tensegrity (54). A growing number of reports point to models based on PL rheology as most relevant (8,(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32). Consequently, we also developed a specific theoretical analysis based on PL rheology (Materials and Methods) to interpret our experiments.…”

“…23-26 for reviews). An increasing amount of experimental evidence points to weak PL rheology as a common feature of cell mechanical responses (8,(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32). Previous experiments and associated modeling have aimed at measuring intracellular mechanical parameters averaged over the whole-cell interior.…”

Effects of water turbulence on variations in cell ultrastructure and metabolism of amino acids in the submersed macrophyte, Elodea nuttallii (Planch.) H. St. John

“…Although plasmolysis in plants is a well‐known response to osmotic changes (Durand‐Smet et al . ), there are no literature reports on the effects of mechanical stress on plasmolysis in aquatic macrophytes, in particular.…”

Developing a ‘thick skin’: a paradoxical role for mechanical tension in maintaining epidermal integrity?

“…These pathways involve structurally heterogeneous molecules that localise to different subcellular compartments, such as cadherins (Leckband and de Rooij, 2014), integrins (Kenny and Connelly, 2015), β-catenin pathway components (Farge, 2003;Fernández-Sánchez et al, 2015), PIEZO/TRP (Schrenk-Siemens et al, 2014), vinculin/talin (Yao et al, 2014), actin (Risca et al, 2012) and YAP/TAZ (Dupont et al, 2011). However, despite some mechanical homologies (Durand-Smet et al, 2014), contractile animal cells are in essence fundamentally different from plant cells, and many of the proteins listed above have thus far not been found to be encoded in plant genomes. This is not surprising: since plants developed multicellularity entirely independently from animals, it is very possible that they developed tension-sensing strategies analogous to those that exist in animal epithelia but using unrelated molecular components.…”