Jean-Baptiste Manneville

My recent research has been articulated around three main questions: 1) What is the impact of membrane mechanical properties on intracellular trafficking? 2) How is an external force transduced towards the intracellular compartments and can it affect membrane transport? 3) Can cells mechanics be used as a diagnostic or prognostic tool for cancer and/or as marker of tumour heterogeneity? The first subject is centred on the early steps of intracellular trafficking. We have studied how membrane tension, lipid shape and membrane curvature feedback on lipid packing to deform the membrane using in vitro model systems. The second question aims at deciphering how mechanical forces impact on membrane trafficking in living cells. We have focused on the Golgi apparatus to show that it is a mechanosensitive organelle that transduces external forces towards the cell interior, possibly via the small G protein Cdc42 and the cytoskeleton. In the third topic, we have measured the mechanical properties of cancer cells at different spatial scales (glioma cells, bladder cancer cells, breast cancer cells) with the aim to correlate mechanics with the aggressiveness of the tumour. Finally, more recently, we have started to investigate the reciprocal links between mechanics and metabolism at the level of individual mitochondria in living cells