
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY).
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Fluorescence imaging of actin cytoskeleton changes in cancer cells upon chemotherapy
1 Research Institute of Biomedical Technologies,
Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
2 Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod – National Research University, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
3 Laboratory of Biophotonics, Department of Genetics and Postgenomic Technologies,
M. M. Shemyakin and Yu. A. Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Correspondence should be addressed: Natalia Klementieva
pl. Minina i Pozharskogo, d. 10/1, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, 603005; moc.liamg@aveitnemelkvn
Funding: this work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project no. 14-25-00129).
Acknowledgements: authors thank the IBCH Core Facility for the equipment.
Structural organization of actin and actin-binding proteins can be a hallmark of aggressiveness among various populations of solid tumor cells. Here, we studied the impact of chemotherapeutic drugs (paclitaxel and cisplatin) on actin and alpha-actinin structural patterns in human cervical adenocarcinoma cell culture HeLa Kyoto using total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy and single-molecule localization super-resolution microscopy. It was shown that paclitaxel causes disruption of actin cytoskeleton in cancer cells, both for actin and alpha-actinin. We observed disappearance of stress fibers, accumulation of filaments in the cell cortex and morphological changes in focal contacts. With cisplatin, we detected a lower number of thin actin bundles and more dense arrangement of alpha-actinin. Our results suggest that the actin cytoskeleton is a potential target for antitumor chemotherapy.
Keywords: actin, alpha-actinin, microfilaments, cervical carcinoma cell culture, paclitaxel, cisplatin, fluorescence imaging