Open Access

ARTICLE

Ablation of cytoskeletal filaments and mitochondria in live cells using a femtosecond laser nanoscissor

by Nan Shen¹, Dabajyoti Datta¹, Chris B. Schaffer¹, Eric Mazur¹

1 Department of Physics and Division of Engineering and AppliedScience, Harvard University
2 Current address: Physical Biosciences Institute, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
3 Current address: Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego
4 Vascular Biology Program, Departments of Pathology & Surgery, Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
5 Current address: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
6 To whom the correspondence should be addressed. E-mail address: mazur@physics.harvard.edu

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics 2005, 2(1), 17-26. https://doi.org/10.3970/mcb.2005.002.017

Abstract

Analysis of cell regulation requires methods for perturbing molecular processes within living cells with spatial discrimination on the nanometer-scale. We present a technique for ablating molecular structures in living cells using low-repetition rate, low-energy femtosecond laser pulses. By tightly focusing these pulses beneath the cell membrane, we ablate cellular material inside the cell through nonlinear processes. We selectively removed sub-micrometer regions of the cytoskeleton and individual mitochondria without altering neighboring structures or compromising cell viability. This nanoscissor technique enables non-invasive manipulation of the structural machinery of living cells with several-hundred-nanometer resolution. Using this approach, we unequivocally demonstrate that mitochondria are structurally independent functional units, and do not form a continuous network as suggested by some past studies.

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