Intracellular dynamics measurements with full field optical coherence tomography suggest hindering effect of actomyosin contractility on organelle transport

Intracellular motion can be quantitatively monitored in tissues using coherence-gated microscopic techniques. With full-field optical coherence tomography (FFOCT), the use of high numerical aperture microscope objectives provides a high resolution mapping of intracellular dynamics that are probed with subwavelength sensitivity. In the upper temporal bandwidth that we have used (1-6 Hz) the main contribution to the dynamic signal arises from the overall dynamical, optically heterogeneous cytoplasm. We propose a method to specifically study the impact of actomyosin contractility on the intracellular dynamic signal by performing high throughput, comparative measurements of multicellular aggregates with and without blebbistatin action, a selective inhibitor of class-II myosins that disrupts actomyosin contractile activity. Our results indicate a significant increase in the fraction of the signal that decorrelates within 1 second after inhibition of contractility. This observation mitigates the anticipated importance of actomyosin contractile forces to directly move organelles, but highlights their role in hindering organelle transport via their stiffening effect of the viscoelastic cytoplasm.