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Biophysics

Rapid mass changes measured in cells

Nature volume 550, pages 465–466 (2017)Cite this article

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An ultrasensitive balance has been developed to weigh single or multiple cells, at high time and mass resolution — revealing fast and subtle mass fluctuations during the cell cycle and viral infection. See Letter p.500

A long-standing challenge in cell biology is to measure the physical properties of living cells as they grow or interact with viruses and drugs. Such knowledge is crucial to our understanding of fundamental processes, such as those involved in cellular shape changes, differentiation and disease. More specifically, how cells regulate their volume and mass during the cell cycle is an important but poorly understood problem. On page 500, Martínez-Martín et al.1 describe a balance that addresses these challenges by enabling tiny changes of cell mass to be measured in just milliseconds.

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Figure 1: An ultrasensitive balance to weigh living cells.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Institute of Life Sciences, Catholic University of Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    David Alsteens & Yves F. Dufrêne

  2. Walloon Excellence in Life Sciences and Biotechnology (WELBIO), Wavre, Belgium

    Yves F. Dufrêne

Authors
  1. David Alsteens
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  2. Yves F. Dufrêne
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to David Alsteens or Yves F. Dufrêne.

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Alsteens, D., Dufrêne, Y. Rapid mass changes measured in cells. Nature 550, 465–466 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/550465a

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