Tension TRAAKer: a chemigenetic fluorescent membrane tension reporter
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Summary Mechanical force transduction is essential to survival, underlying biological processes as fundamental as morphogenesis, somatosensation, audition, and interoception; and driving pathologies as diverse as hypertension and cancer metastasis. Exogenous forces are translated to intracellular signals through transient changes in membrane tension which are currently not possible to directly monitor in situ . To remedy this, we have designed and validated Tension TRAAKer, a chemigenetic fluorescent membrane tension reporter for the visualization of tension induction, propagation, and dissipation in living cells. Tension TRAAKer is derived from inserting a tension-sensitive nonconductive variant of the mechanosensitive potassium ion channel TRAAK into a self-labelling HaloTag. Increasing membrane tensions effect conformational changes in the TRAAK channel that are optically monitored by a HaloTag-conjugated fluorogenic (environment-sensitive) dye. EGFP incorporation C-terminal to the HaloTag enables unambiguous tension reporting in mobile membranes via dual-color ratiometric imaging that controls for variations in sensor density. Tension TRAAKer reports membrane tension changes rapidly, reversibly, and with spatiotemporal precision—its fluorescence scaling to both stimulus magnitude and area, with consistent effect sizes observed between diverse cell types. It better distinguishes among elevated membrane tensions than do available indirect chemical reporters, with the additional advantage of being readily genetically targetable. We thus expect Tension TRAAKer to be a powerful tool for the study of membrane tension across biological systems and disease states.
Institutions: QB3, University of California, Berkeley
Language: English
Subfield: Cell Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: Upgrade for time-correlated single photon counting fluorescence lifetime laser scanning confocal microscope, An electro-mechanical mechanism of spike propagation in myelinated axons, Targeting the retinoic acid signaling pathway for mitigating visual impairmen in retinal degenerative disorders, New approaches to understanding biological force sensation, UC Berkeley Vision Science CORE, Structural basis for K2P channel gating and modulation, Chemical Approaches to Visualize and Quantify Cellular Physiology, Determining the role of the mechano-activated potassium channel TRAAK at nodes of Ranvier
OpenAlex ID: W7164197235