Apoptotic cell death eliminates unhealthy cells and maintains homeostatic cell numbers within tissues. Epithelia, which serve as fundamental tissue barriers for the body, depend on a physical expulsion of dying cells (apoptotic cell extrusion) to remain sealed and intact. Apoptotic cell extrusion has been widely studied over recent years, with researchers using various approaches to induce apoptotic cell death. Unfortunately, the majority of chemical-based approaches for cell death induction rely on sporadically occurring apoptosis and extrusion, making imagining lengthy, often unsuccessful, and difficult to capture in high-quality images because of the frequent frame sampling needed to visualise the key molecular processes that drive extrusion. Here, we present a protocol that describes steps needed for laser-mediated induction of apoptosis in a cell of choice, followed by imaging of apoptotic extrusion in confluent monolayers of epithelial cells. Moreover, we provide the description of a new approach involving the mixing of labelled and unlabelled cells. In particular, this protocol characterises how cells surrounding apoptotic cells behave, with high spatial and temporal resolution. This can be achieved without the optical interference that apoptotic cells cause as they are physically expelled from the monolayer and move out of focus for imaging. Finally, the protocol is accompanied by detailed procedures describing cell preparation for apoptotic extrusion experiments, as well as post-acquisition analysis required to evaluate rates of successful extrusion.

The cortical actomyosin cytoskeleton is found in all non-muscle cells where a key function is to control mechanical force (Salbreux et al., 2012). When coupled to E-cadherin cell-cell adhesion, cortical actomyosin generates junctional tension that influences many aspects of tissue function, organization and morphogenesis (Lecuit and Yap, 2015). Uncovering the molecular mechanisms underlying the generation of junctional tension requires tools for measuring it in live cells with a high spatio-temporal resolution. For this, we have set up a technique of laser ablation, in which we use the high power output of a two-photon laser to physically cut the actin cortex at the sites of cell-cell adhesion labeled with E-cadherin-GFP. Tension, thus is visualized as the outwards recoil of the vertices that define a junction after this was ablated/cut. Analysis of recoil versus time allows extracting parameters related to the amount of contractile force that is applied to the junction before ablation (initial recoil) and the ratio between elasticity of the junction and viscosity of the media (cytoplasm) in which the junctional cortex is immersed. Using this approach we have discovered how Src protein-tyrosine kinase (Gomez et al., 2015); actin-binding proteins such as tropomyosins (Caldwell et al., 2014) and N-WASP (Wu et al., 2014); Myosin II (Priya et al., 2015) and coronin-1B (Michael et al., 2016) contribute to the molecular apparatus responsible for generating tension at the cell-cell junctions. This protocol describes the experimental procedure for setting up laser ablation experiments and how to optimize ablation and acquisition conditions for optimal measurements of junctional tension. It also provides a full description, step by step, of the post-acquisition analysis required to evaluate changes in contractile force as well as cell elasticity and/or cytoplasm viscosity.

Non-muscle myosin II (NMII) form bipolar filaments, which bind F-actin to exert cellular contractility during physiological processes (Vicente-Manzanares et al., 2009). Using a combinatorial approach to fluorescently label both N- and C-termini of the NMII heavy chain, recent works have demonstrated the ability to visualize NMII bipolar filaments at various subcellular localizations (Ebrahim et al., 2013; Beach et al., 2014). At the zonula adherens (ZA) of epithelia, NMII minifilaments bind the circumferential actin bundles in a pseudo-sarcomeric manner (Ebrahim et al., 2013), a conformation required to maintain junctional tension and tissue integrity (Ratheesh et al., 2012). By expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP)-NMIIA heavy chain and immunolabel it using a NMIIA C-terminus specific antibody, we were able to visualize the NMII minifilaments bound to F-actin bundles in Caco-2 cells (Michael et al., 2016), as previously reported (Ebrahim et al., 2013; Beach et al., 2014). In addition, we designed an FIJI/MATLAB analysis module to quantify the size, distance and alignment of these minifilaments with respect to junctional F-actin at the ZA. Measurements of the dispersion of minifilaments angles were proven to be a useful parameter that closely correlated to the extent of contractility at junctions (Michael et al., 2016).

Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP) (Lippincott-Schwartz et al., 2003; Reits and Neefjes, 2001) was employed to determine dynamic properties of proteins localized at the ephitelial zonula adherens (ZA) (Kovacs et al., 2011; Otani et al., 2006). The proteins of interest were expressed in cells using a knockdown and reconstitution approach in which endogenous proteins were depleted by RNA interference (RNAi) and replaced by expression of an RNAi-resistant gene fused to GFP (Priya et al., 2013; Smutny et al., 2010; Smutny et al., 2011; Vitriol et al., 2007). By choosing expression levels of GFP-tagged proteins that were comparable to endogenous levels, we minimized transient overexpression artifacts due to overcoming regulatory mechanisms that directly affect protein dynamics (Goodson et al., 2010). Using this approach, junctional E-cadherin-GFP or GFP-Ect2 were subjected to FRAP analysis in small areas corresponding to the ZA using confocal microscopy (Priya et al., 2013; Ratheesh et al., 2012; Gomez et al., 2005; Trenchi et al., 2009). Although in principle this approach is similar in every case, bleaching conditions, acquisition parameters and analysis details might differ depending on the time scale of the recovery process (Lippincott-Schwartz et al., 2003). In this protocol we will describe the experimental procedure to perform FRAP experiments and how to optimize bleaching and acquisition conditions for optimal measurements of protein dynamics at cell-cell junctions.