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The nuclei of multinucleated skeletal muscles experience substantial external force during development and muscle contraction. Protection from such forces is partly provided by lamins, intermediate filaments that form a scaffold lining the inner nuclear membrane. Lamins play a myriad of roles, including maintenance of nuclear shape and stability, mediation of nuclear mechanoresponses, and nucleo-cytoskeletal coupling. Herein, we investigate how disease-causing mutant lamins alter myonuclear properties in response to mechanical force. This was accomplished via a novel application of a micropipette harpooning assay applied to larval body wall muscles of Drosophila models of lamin-associated muscular dystrophy. The assay enables the measurement of both nuclear deformability and intracellular force transmission between the cytoskeleton and nuclear interior in intact muscle fibers. Our studies revealed that specific mutant lamins increase nuclear deformability while other mutant lamins cause nucleo-cytoskeletal coupling defects, which were associated with loss of microtubular nuclear caging. We found that microtubule caging of the nucleus depended on Msp300, a KASH domain protein that is a component of the linker of nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton (LINC) complex. Taken together, these findings identified residues in lamins required for connecting the nucleus to the cytoskeleton and suggest that not all muscle disease-causing mutant lamins produce similar defects in subcellular mechanics.
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This content will become publicly available on July 1, 2026
Nucleo-cytoskeletal coupling controls intracellular deformation partitioning during cell stretching
Cells sense and transduce mechanical forces to regulate diverse biological processes, yet the mechanical stimuli that initiate these processes remain poorly understood. In particular, how nuclear and cytoplasmic deformations respond to external forces is unclear. Here, we developed a microscopy-based technique to quantify the extensional uniaxial strains of the nucleus and cytoplasm during cell stretching, enabling direct measurement of their bulk mechanical responses. Using this approach, we identified a previously unrecognized inverse relationship between nuclear and cytoplasmic deformation in epithelial monolayers. We demonstrate that nucleo-cytoskeletal coupling, mediated by the Linker of Nucleoskeleton and Cytoskeleton (LINC) complex, regulates this anti-correlation (Pearson correlation coefficient approx. 0.3). Disrupting LINC abolished this relationship, revealing its fundamental role in intracellular deformation partitioning. Furthermore, we found that cytoplasmic deformation is directly correlated with stretch-induced nuclear shrinkage, suggesting a mechanotransduction pathway in which cytoplasmic mechanics influence nuclear responses. Lastly, multivariable analyses established that intracellular deformation can be inferred from cell morphology, providing a predictive framework for cellular mechanical behaviour. These findings refine our understanding of nucleo-cytoskeletal coupling in governing intracellular force transmission and mechanotransduction.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2048219
- PAR ID:
- 10636454
- Publisher / Repository:
- Royal Society Open Science
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Royal Society Open Science
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 7
- ISSN:
- 2054-5703
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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