Experimental modulation of physiological force application on leg joint neurons in intact Drosophila melanogaster.

The study of how mechanical forces affect biological events in living tissue is important for the understanding of a multitude of physiogical and pathophysiological phenomena. However, these investigations are often impeded by insufficient knowledge about force parameters, inadequate experimental administration of force stimuli and lack of noninvasive means to record their molecular and cellular effects. We therefore introduced a procedure to study the impact of force stimulation on adhesion G-protein-coupled receptor dissociation in mechanosensory neurons.

Molecular sensing of mechano- and ligand-dependent adhesion GPCR dissociation.

Adhesion G-protein-coupled receptors (aGPCRs) bear notable similarity to Notch proteins, a class of surface receptors poised for mechano-proteolytic activation, including an evolutionarily conserved mechanism of cleavage. However, so far there is no unifying explanation for why aGPCRs are autoproteolytically processed. Here we introduce a genetically encoded sensor system to detect the dissociation events of aGPCR heterodimers into their constituent N-terminal and C-terminal fragments (NTFs and CTFs, respectively).