Electromechanics and Volume Dynamics in Nonexcitable Tissue Cells

Cell volume regulation is fundamentally important in phenomena such as cell growth, proliferation, tissue homeostasis, and embryogenesis. How the cell size is set, maintained, and changed over a cell’s lifetime is not well understood. In this work we focus on how the volume of nonexcitable tissue ce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biophysical journal 2018-05, Vol.114 (9), p.2231-2242
Main Authors: Yellin, Florence, Li, Yizeng, Sreenivasan, Varun K.A., Farrell, Brenda, Johny, Manu B., Yue, David, Sun, Sean X.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actins - chemistry
Cell Biophysics
Cell Line, Tumor
Cell Size
Chlorides - metabolism
Electrophysiological Phenomena
Extracellular Space - metabolism
Humans
Intracellular Space - metabolism
Potassium - metabolism
Protein Multimerization
Protein Structure, Quaternary
Sodium - metabolism
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Summary:Cell volume regulation is fundamentally important in phenomena such as cell growth, proliferation, tissue homeostasis, and embryogenesis. How the cell size is set, maintained, and changed over a cell’s lifetime is not well understood. In this work we focus on how the volume of nonexcitable tissue cells is coupled to the cell membrane electrical potential and the concentrations of membrane-permeable ions in the cell environment. Specifically, we demonstrate that a sudden cell depolarization using the whole-cell patch clamp results in a 50% increase in cell volume, whereas hyperpolarization results in a slight volume decrease. We find that cell volume can be partially controlled by changing the chloride or the sodium/potassium concentrations in the extracellular environment while maintaining a constant external osmotic pressure. Depletion of external chloride leads to a volume decrease in suspended HN31 cells. Introducing cells to a high-potassium solution causes volume increase up to 50%. Cell volume is also influenced by cortical tension: actin depolymerization leads to cell volume increase. We present an electrophysiology model of water dynamics driven by changes in membrane potential and the concentrations of permeable ions in the cells surrounding. The model quantitatively predicts that the cell volume is directly proportional to the intracellular protein content.
ISSN:0006-3495
1542-0086
DOI:10.1016/j.bpj.2018.03.033