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Fibrosis and pathological stiffening of tissue are driven by mechanical and biochemical signaling pathways. Here, we find that Sun2, an integral inner nuclear membrane component of Linker of Nucleoskeleton and Cytoskeleton (LINC) complexes, is up-regulated in the lung of patients suffering from fibrotic conditions and in fibroblasts during an injury-induced mouse model of lung fibrosis. Sun2 protein levels also increase in primary lung fibroblasts in a substrate stiffness-dependent manner. Sun2-/- primary lung fibroblasts respond to TGFβ, become contractile, and express a key marker of extracellular matrix-producing fibroblasts, Cthrc1 . Consistent with this, Sun2 is dispensable for myofibroblast formation and repairing the alveolar barrier after bleomycin injury. Remarkably, however, fibrosis does not develop in bleomycin-treated Sun2-/- mouse lungs. This is explained by the requirement for Sun2 to up-regulate genes encoding extracellular matrix proteins. We therefore suggest that Sun2-containing LINC complexes contribute to a mechanical coincidence detection mechanism that acts in concert with canonical TGFβ signaling necessary for pathologic extracellular matrix protein production, representing a nuclear mechanosensing node for intervention in fibrotic diseases of the lung. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. National Institutes of Health, F31HL158119, F31AR085488, R35GM153474, 5R01HL163984, 1R01HL178097-01A1, R01AR076938 National Institutes of Health, https://ror.org/01cwqze88, R01AR0695505, R01AR084558
Nucleus shape is a sensitive indicator of cell state, influenced by numerous biochemical and physiological factors. While prior work has cataloged how perturbations alter nucleus morphology, we address the inverse: inferring underlying molecular changes from nucleus shape alone. We previously developed a mechanical model yielding two nondimensional parameters: flatness index and scale factor, which are surrogate measures for cortical actin tension and nuclear envelope compliance respectively. In this study, we apply these parameters to investigate the dynamics in cellular mechanics during confined migration. We fabricated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannels with widths of 3 μm (high confinement) and 10 μm (low confinement) and tracked cells migrating through them. We captured high-frequency 3D nucleus shapes via double fluorescence exclusion microscopy and custom image analysis. Fitting the model and estimating flatness index and scale factor to time-resolved shapes revealed dynamic regulation in 3 μm channels: actin tension decreased and nucleus compliance increased immediately before nucleus entry into the constriction, with rapid restoration to baseline upon exit. No such changes occurred in 10 μm channels, indicating active, confinement-dependent cytoskeletal adaptation. Immunostaining for YAP and lamin-A,C confirmed these model inferences. Our results uncover mechanostasis, active mechanical homeostasis, during confined migration and establish the combination of double fluorescence exclusion microscopy and nondimensional nucleus shape parameters as a powerful, non-invasive tool for single-cell mechanobiology studies. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
Mechanical forces transmitted through focal adhesions regulate cell behavior and disease progression, yet remain difficult to quantify at the molecular level. Genetically encoded FRET-based tension probes enable measurements of piconewton-scale forces across specific proteins in living cells, but their quantitative interpretation is highly sensitive to probe design and measurement modality. Here, we systematically compared vinculin tension sensors under identical experimental conditions, evaluating unloaded reference constructs, fluorophore pairs, mechanical sensor modules, and circularly permuted variants. Unloaded controls established a common no-force baseline and validated force-dependent readout. Among the fluorophore pairs tested, the green-red combination Clover-mScarlet-I yielded a higher unloaded FRET efficiency and hence a broader measurable dynamic range. Comparison of six mechanical sensor modules identified the binary-response sensors FL and CC-S2 as the most responsive, showing the largest force-dependent FRET changes and broadest FRET distributions. At the sub-focal adhesion level, CC-S2 reported the steepest proximal-to-distal tension gradient, indicating that vinculin tension increases sharply along peripheral adhesions and exceeds 10 piconewton. Circular permutation experiments revealed that fluorophore orientation has a strong, module-dependent influence on the measured FRET readout. Together, these results establish a comparative framework for interpreting FLIM-based vinculin tension measurements and provide practical design principles for selecting and engineering molecular tension probes. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Research Foundation - Flanders, https://ror.org/03qtxy027, G0C2422N, G0A8L24N, G0B9922N, 1S95125N KU Leuven, C14/22/085
Rxiv mechanobio
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