bidisha.sinha[at]iiserkol.ac.in

How do cells respond to mechanical stresses?
The theme of my research is to study how mechanical properties of the plasma membrane coupled to the cytoskeleton (cell interface) are linked to cellular functioning. A combination of high-resolution imaging of cells with substrate micro-patterning and controlled stretching will be used to address this in two ways. In one, the effect of mechanical stresss on membrane trafficking, cytoskeleton interactions, internal organelle distribution, cell-substrate and cell-cell interactions; and cell re-orientation will be investigated. In parallel, a new tension measurement assay will be developed to study in resting conditions the population variability of mechanical properties of the cell interface and its correlation with cellular functioning. This perspective will also be used to understand the origin and nature of functioning of tunneling nano-tubes.

1. Sinha, B*, Köster, D.*, Ruez, R., Gonnord, P., Bastiani, M., Abankwa, D., Stan, R., Johannes, L., Morone N., Parton, R., Raposo, G., Sens, P., Lamaze, C. and Nassoy, P. (2011). Cells respond to mechanical stress by rapid disassembly of caveolae. Cell 144, 402-403.

2. Sinha, B., Bhattacharya, D., Sinha, D.K., Talwar, S., Maharana, S., Gupta, S., Shivashankar, G.V. (2010) Dynamic organization of chromatin assembly and transcription factories in living cells. Methods Cell Biol 98, 57-78.

3. Banerjee, B., Bhattacharya, D., and Shivashankar, G.V. (2006). Chromatin structure exhibits spatio-temporal heterogeneity within the cell nucleus. Biophys J 91, 2297-2303.