Light-induced cortical excitability reveals programmable shape dynamics in starfish oocytes

TL;DR

This study introduces an optogenetic approach to control and understand shape-changing cortical waves in starfish oocytes, revealing how programmable light stimuli can induce diverse cellular deformations and advance synthetic cell design.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel optogenetic method and a quantitative model to control and predict shape dynamics in oocytes, decoupling mechanical responses from natural cues.

Findings

Optogenetic stimuli induce diverse shape deformations.

A hierarchical model links chemical and mechanical dynamics.

Programmable control predicts shape transition behaviors.

Abstract

Chemo-mechanical waves on active deformable surfaces are a key component for many vital cellular functions. In particular, these waves play a major role in force generation and long-range signal transmission in cells that dynamically change shape, as encountered during cell division or morphogenesis. Reconstituting and controlling such chemically controlled cell deformations is a crucial but unsolved challenge for the development of synthetic cells. Here, we develop an optogenetic method to elucidate the mechanism responsible for coordinating surface contraction waves that occur in oocytes of the starfish Patiria miniata during meiotic cell division. Using spatiotemporally-patterned light stimuli as a control input, we create chemo-mechanical cortical excitations that are decoupled from meiotic cues and drive diverse shape deformations ranging from local pinching to surface contraction waves and cell lysis. We develop a quantitative model that entails the hierarchy of chemical and mechanical dynamics, which allows to relate the variety of mechanical responses to optogenetic stimuli. Our framework systematically predicts and explains transitions of programmed shape dynamics. Finally, we qualitatively map the observed shape dynamics to elucidate how the versatility of intracellular protein dynamics can give rise to a broad range of mechanical phenomenologies. More broadly, our results pave the way toward real-time control over dynamical deformations in living organisms and can advance the design of synthetic cells and life-like cellular functions.