3D-SPORT. The new and essential aspect of this study is to use AuNR cargos to track changes in the orientation of cargo-laden CCPs during endocytosis in vivo and thus measure the hypothesized twisting motions involved in dynamin-induced fission. To facilitate the CME of AuNRs, transferrin molecules were conjugated to the surface of 40 nm × 80 nm AuNRs. Gold nanoparticles with similar sizes modified this way have been repeatedly shown to be taken up by cells predominately through the CME pathway32,33. Well-dispersed nanoparticles in this size are endocytosed individually. They are tightly wrapped by the lipid membrane and their motions reflect the movement of the whole vesicle33,34. Given the size of these particles, we anticipate that each CCP and nascent clathrin-coated vesicle (CCV) will carry only a single transferrin-conjugated AuNR and thus, their dynamics will report those of the cargo-laden CCP/CCV35.
To track the AuNR’s orientation over the entire 3D space (0-360º for azimuth and 0–90º for polar angles), defocused dark-field imaging was used to collect the image pattern of AuNRs36. It is worth noting that due to its D2 symmetry, the 3D orientations of a AuNR (ϕ, θ) and (ϕ + 180, 180-θ) are degenerate. However, when the rotation of the AuNR is not too fast (< 45º/frame for both azimuth and polar angles), the continuous rotation and the orientation of the AuNR in the full 3D space, i.e., 0-360º for azimuth and 0-180º for polar angles, can be recovered with only one exception that the AuNR has a polar angel of exact 90º. A major hurdle for defocused imaging in practical biological imaging is that the axial position of the probe is constantly changing, resulting in image pattern changes that interfere with the orientation recovery. In our setup, we employed a feedback loop that automatically locks the probe axially to overcome this problem (Fig. 1A and Figure S1, refer to Methods, and Supplemental Information for details) and enable accurate image patterns to be obtained for precise and robust determination of the probe’s orientation angles.
Experimentally, the instrument can resolve the 3D orientation (defined in Fig. 1B) of the AuNRs with a time resolution of ~ 20 ms (Supplemental Information). Figure 1C shows example images of a AuNR immobilized in agarose gel with a fixed polar angle of 60° and varying azimuth angles (more experimental images are shown in Figure S2). To recover their 3D orientation, a correlation coefficient mapping method was used, which compares an experimental image with all simulated images at different orientations, followed by a weighting procedure to report the most probable azimuth and polar angles of the probe. The simulated image patterns were from the theoretical point spread functions (PSF) of an emitting dipole, which were a function of its azimuth and polar angles and can be generated using the six basic functions of dipole emission (\(I_{x}^{2}\), \(I_{{xy}}^{{}}\), \(I_{y}^{2}\), \(I_{{xz}}^{{}}\),\(I_{z}^{2}\), \(I_{{yz}}^{{}}\)) (Supplemental Information 1.3 and Figure S3). These basic image patterns are dependent on system-specific parameters including the numerical aperture and magnification of the objective, and the defocusing distance. Importantly, the defocused image patterns are unique at different azimuth/polar angles, confirming that the defocused imaging overcomes angular degeneracy in the entire 3D space (with exceptions at the polar angle of ~ 90º, at which the azimuth angle shows a 2-fold degeneracy) and provides true rotational direction information. The analysis of the orientation-dependent uncertainties associated with the recovered azimuth and polar angles is provided in Figure S4 and S5. Under our typical live-cell imaging conditions, a precision of < 2° can be accomplished for most polar and azimuth angles with a signal-to-noise ratio of ~ 10. At the same time, the AuNR’s position in the 3D space can be recovered with a precision of 4 ~ 6 nm laterally and 14 nm axially (Figure S6).
Multi-dimensional tracking. 3D SPORT can collect the translational and rotational motion of AuNR probes in the 3D space in focused channel and defocused channel, respectively. Our customized instrument (Fig. 1A) also allows two additional fluorescence color channels to be simultaneously collected with a second EMCCD camera, which provides dynamic molecular information (i.e., dynamin and clathrin in this study) around the AuNR probe with an signal integration time of 0.5 s or 1.5 s and a waiting time between frames of 0.5 s. Sparsely distributed frames over time were used to minimize photobleaching.
In the experiments, we used the SK-MEL-2 cell line (a gift from Drubin’s group at the University of California, Berkeley) that were gene-edited to express RFP-tagged clathrin (CLTA-RFP) and EGFP-tagged dynamin2 (DNM2-EGFP)37. For imaging, the surface-modified AuNR solution was added to cells plated on a glass substrate ready for microscopic observation. Once a AuNR landed on the curved cell membrane surface, the recording was started and continued until convincing evidence was detected that the AuNR was inside the cell: usually linear translocation of the cargo over a long distance in the cell. All channels including AuNR scattering, dynamin and clathrin fluorescence were synchronized and recorded simultaneously. Only one AuNR was monitored during each experiment. To exclude any unambiguity, we focused on endocytosis events where both dynamin and clathrin were observable (Movies S1 show an endocytosis example. For clarification, only the dynamin channel and the focused AuNR scattering channel are overlaid and displayed).
Figure 2 shows an example of an endocytic event with the AuNR probe’s translational displacements and two fluorescence channels. The colocalization of the scattering image of a AuNR cargo with clathrin and dynamin fluorescence gave direct evidence that CME happens for the observed endocytic event (Fig. 2A-D). The detachment of the nascent vesicle from the cell membrane occurred at 12.2 s, which was indicated in this case by a sudden large xy-displacement, accompanied with a 260 nm inward z-directional change from the original entry spot (Fig. 2F, bottom two panels). This indicates that fission happened at, or slightly before the point at 12.2 s (i.e. the detachment point). Before this point, fluctuation and drifting of the AuNR in the range of several hundred nm both laterally and axially were observed, possibly caused by thermal fluctuation of the cell membrane and live cellular activities.
The accumulation of dynamin at the CCPs showed large variations from case to case but usually peaked around the detachment point. In this specific case, dynamin fluorescence on the vesicle quickly dropped to the baseline after fission; whereas the opposite was observed for clathrin fluorescence, which was lost from the entry spot, but remained on the vesicle for several seconds and dropped quickly to the baseline (Fig. 2E and 2F, top two panels). At the entry spot on the membrane, although the dynamin fluorescence persisted, the intensity dropped, possibly reflecting partial disassembly of the dynamin helix. It is worth noting that the focal plane moved away from the entry spot along with the vesicle, which also contributed, but to a lesser extent, to the fluorescence intensity drop at the entry spot (Fig. 2F). This example shows that these simultaneous fluorescence observations give detailed dynamics of the recruitment of these two proteins on the vesicles and the entry spot. These observations are of crucial importance in elucidating their functions as discussed later.
Characteristic rotational motions of AuNR cargos during endocytosis. When the rotational motion of the cargo is considered, new information of endocytosis can be obtained. Figure 3A shows as a typical example of, from top to bottom: the lateral displacement of the particle with respect to the initial contact point, the azimuth and polar angles, and the z-displacement. These movements can be interpreted in the context of dynamin fluorescence intensity, which is shown in shaded light green in the background. (Figure S7 shows the cell images, clathrin, dynamin information for this example.) Note that the azimuth and polar angles are cumulative with respect to the AuNR’s initial orientation so that they may exceed their nominal ranges (0-360º and 0-180º, respectively).
At first glance, the AuNRs showed complicated motional patterns, experiencing multiple rotation-immobilization cycles. However, when combined with molecular information from the fluorescence observation, these motions can be classified into characteristic “stages”. All of the endocytosed AuNR cargos (45/45) showed a sequential combination of these characteristic stages throughout the process, although in some cases individual stages were missing or repeated. These stages of characteristic rotational motions, which are delineated in Fig. 3 (more examples of complete endocytosis events are shown in Figure S8 and S9) are: (a) the initial active rotation – immobilization cycles, (b) the dynamin accumulation stage toward its peak with high variability in rotations, (c) a static period before the super twist, (d) the right-handed, super twist at dynamin peak, (e) a short, relatively slow random rotation period, and (f) a post-detachment period, which is characterized with either active translational and rotational diffusion, or linear transport with little rotation inside the cell. Of these, stages a-c are more variable, and thus will be discussed only briefly. Invariant, however, is the super twist observed prior to vesicle departure.
Stage a. Initial active rotation – immobilization cycles and clathrin accumulation. When AuNRs first attached onto cell membrane, they showed active rotation accompanied by lateral diffusion. This stage, which usually lasts for minutes (~ 2 minutes for the example in Fig. 3), is not plotted in full in Fig. 3 for clarity. Movie S2 shows a typical example of active rotation of a AuNR on the cell membrane surface at this stage. The initial rotation is characterized by large rotation steps (65 ± 92º/frame for azimuth angle, 13 ± 16º/frame for polar angle, Mean ± SD, n = 2000, Figure S10 and Figure S11 A and B). The active rotation indicates that the AuNRs were loosely attached to the membrane surface, possibly through a single point of attachment that allowed the AuNRs to wave in the cell medium. The translational and rotational freedoms of the AuNRs were lost gradually, and they could become immobilized on the cell membrane through multi-point attachments. The attachments were often weak, with the AuNRs occasionally going back to the active rotation mode38,39.
The accumulation, and presumably assembly of clathrin is often deemed as an indication that endocytosis has started, which can be observed in Stage a with large variations in duration5. The AuNR became completely immobilized with the initiation of clathrin assembly, although immobilization of a AuNR does not always require clathrin assembly. This can be attributed to the curvature of the CCP forming on the membrane, which could spatially constrain the AuNR and restrict its rotational freedom due to more contact points. In practice, the “completely immobilized” AuNRs at this stage was always observed to fluctuate due to thermal activity, with a rotation speed of ~ 2º/frame, slightly larger than the angle recovery precision. In addition, drifting of the AuNRs can be observed possibly because of the translational and rotational drifting of the whole patch of the membrane supporting the AuNRs. This kind of drifting was usually very slow, with an accumulative rotation speed of several degrees per second. An arbitrarily chosen accumulative rotation speed of < 10º/s (equivalent to 0.2º/frame) was used as a criterion to differentiate drifting from dynamin-induced rotation that occurred later.
Stage b. Dynamin accumulation stage showing high rotation variability. This stage is highly variable in length of time (Fig. 3, S8 and S9) and in rotational freedoms. In 5 out of 45 cases, the AuNR cargos would maintain static during the whole period (e.g. Figure S9 A and D). In other cases, the AuNR cargos would restore slow or fast random rotations intermittently (e.g., 147.0-165.8 s in Fig. 3A). The histograms of the steps in Fig. 3A show an average step size of 5 ± 8º /frame in the azimuth plane and 3 ± 6º /frame in the polar direction (Mean ± SD, n = 990, Figure S11 C and D).
This stage is defined by the recruitment of dynamin to the underlying CCP (shaded light green fluorescence in the background of Fig. 3A and B 147.0-165.8 s) toward its peak, although the kinetics and the extent of dynamin recruitment varied considerably (Fig. 3, S8 and S9), as has been reported by other groups7,40. This period also corresponds to the increasing curvature of the underlying CCP5. It is thus reasonable to assume that as the CCP invaginates and the newly recruited dynamin begins to reshape the lipid membrane on the neck of the vesicle, the cargo inside may, but not necessarily always, undergo constrained rotations with random directions.
Toward the end of this period, the rotations, in some cases, may occur in a fast and abrupt manner. This behavior was more pronounced at pits where dynamin recruitment was greater (Fig. 3, S8 and S9B) and thus may be an indication that the membrane tension is high at the end of dynamin recruitment. While it is unclear what events cause these rotations and movements, they may reflect cycles of dynamin assembly and disassembly, twisting and squeezing the vesicle neck so that the AuNR cargo rotates along with the invaginated pit.
At the end of this stage, which coincided with the peak of dynamin recruitment/assembly, the cargo vesicle would pause rotation for those showed rotation earlier. This whole Stage b took 18.8 s for this specific example in Fig. 3, which is consistent with the literature reports of the time for dynamin recruitment37,41.
Stage c. Static period before the super twist. Stage b is invariably followed by a brief static period, or waiting time (Stage c, Fig. 3C, 165.8-166.7 s), as if the vesicle went into a deadlock, or was waiting for a signal to restart motion. To accurately calculate the duration time of stage c, only 40 cases with AuNR rotation in stage b were taken into accounted. Therefore, the duration was 1.9 ± 1.5 s (Mean ± SD, n = 40, Fig. 4C). This stage occurs at or near the peak of dynamin recruitment and could correspond to a constricted coated pit, which has been identified biochemically and linked to dynamin assembly12.
Stage d. A right-handed super twist precedes membrane fission and vesicle release. The most dramatic and invariant (45/45) observation is the occurrence of a large and rapid right-handed, in-plane rotation(s) of the AuNR (Step d in Fig. 3AB, in which case the AuNR rotated 208° in-plane from 166.7 to 167.2 s). During the whole period, the polar angle barely changed (Fig. 3B).
The average twisting angle for all the observed cases (n = 45) was 130 ± 56º (Mean ± SD) and was finished in a very short time of 0.28 ± 0.18 s (Mean ± SD, Fig. 4A and B). Given their magnitude, we named these rotations the “super twist” in this manuscript. Movies S3 show 3 examples of these super twists imaged in the defocused channel starting from the static period. A large portion of these super twists (33/45, e.g., Fig. 3, S9 B, S9 C and D) were finished in a clear single step, with the rest (12/45, e.g. Figure S8 and S9A) showing two steps. No more than two steps were identified. The total length of time from the end of Stage b to the departure of the vesicle (Stage f, discussed below), which encompassed the peak of dynamin recruitment (Fig. 3A) was short (e.g., 2.0 s in this example).
The coincidence of the peak of dynamin accumulation and the super twist suggests that the super twist may be driven by dynamin hydrolysis of GTP and is the major factor for driving fission and dynamin disassembly. To test this hypothesis, we carried out a control study using cells that express the K44A dynamin mutant defective in GTPase activity. These cells showed significantly reduced efficiency in internalizing AuNRs (Figure S12 B). In single-particle observation experiments with these cells, no successful endocytosis event was observed (n = 25) with sufficiently long observation time (tens of minutes). While characteristic AuNR motions consistent with early stages up to the static stage (Stage c) were detected, no super twist was detected (for a specific example, Figure S12 A). As a result, CME was not completed. These data confirmed that the dynamin helix generates the super twist upon GTP hydrolysis.
Stage e. Constrained random rotations precede vesicle detachment. After the super twist, the vesicle had another period of relatively slow, random rotations within a limited range before the detachment from the cell membrane (Stage e). The rotation steps (10 ± 13º/frame for azimuth and 7 ± 10º/frame for polar, Mean ± SD, n = 900, Figure S11 E and F) were larger than those in the first slow rotation Step b (5 ± 8º/frame for azimuth and 3 ± 6º/frame for polar, Mean ± SD, n = 990, Figure S11 C and D), yet much smaller than those in the free diffusion step (Step f: 21 ± 32º/frame for azimuth and 12 ± 18º /frame for polar, Mean ± SD, n = 1000, Figure S11 G and H). These observations possibly indicate that the rigid scaffold that stabilizes the vesicle and the neck was broken but the vesicle was still associated with the cell membrane through the remaining protein-protein interactions. The duration of this period was highly variable (2.1 ± 1.4 s, mean ± SD, n = 45, Fig. 4D).
Stage f. Vesicle detachment and severing point. We will use “severing point” or “detachment point” rather than “fission point” to describe the vesicle’s status in the study. The “fission point”, by convention, marks the time at which the vesicle membrane is no longer continuous with the plasma membrane. Since we cannot exclude the possibility that mature vesicle is still connect to the cell membrane through the protein scaffold, the fission point cannot be identified using our imaging method. Here, “severing” describes a status that the vesicle is no longer connected to the cell membrane by the lipid tube, or the rigid protein scaffold on the CCP neck. In practice, vesicles in this state may still be tethered to the membrane through loose connections such as actin filaments so they do not leave the entry spot immediately.
We applied a rigorous set of criteria in finding the detachment point. First, our observations are based on dark-field imaging, which has a large depth of view and allows a more direct and complete assessment of the displacement of the cargo rather than associated proteins. A long-distance of diffusion with active rotation or linear traveling (with barely any rotation) provides definitive evidence that the cargo is already inside the cell. Second, the onset of the displacement, however, cannot be used as the criteria for severing because the vesicle may be still trapped in the actin mesh, or attached to the cell membrane loosely through other proteins such actin filaments. Thus, the most important criterium was the restoration of active rotational motions, which can be visually identified and usually happens slightly earlier than, or at the same time as the onset of the lateral displacement. This is defined as the severing point since a relatively rigid connection by the lipid membrane tube, or the remaining of the broken protein scaffold such as dynamin or other tightly bound coat proteins, would not allow large rotational steps. For example, in Fig. 3, the mean rotation step sizes starting from Stage f are increased to 21 ± 32º/frame in the azimuth plane, 12 ± 18º/frame in the polar direction (Mean ± SD, n = 1000, Figure S11 G and H), as opposed to Stage b (5 ± 8º/frame in azimuth plane and 3 ± 6º /frame in polar direction, Mean ± SD, n = 990, Figure S11 C and D). Third, in many events (~ 70%), the AuNR cargos were observed to have an instantaneous z-movement of > 100 nm accompanied with the onset of the active rotation (e.g., Fig. 3A at 167.8 s, which had an inward (negative) z-movement of 300 nm). The rapid inward z-movement is possibly caused by the release of tension that is generated by the rigid protein scaffold and other endocytic protein machinery, upon the severing of the vesicle from the membrane42,43. Finally, the recruitment dynamics of dynamin and clathrin on both the nascent vesicle and the entry spot facilitate the assignment of rotation stages (Figs. 2 and 3).
Ambiguity in determining fission point using imaging methods. To clearly understand the events during the late stages of vesicle formation, it is of critical importance to identify the time of fission. However, pinpointing the fission point in live cells has been a challenging problem41,44. The vesicle itself can remain tightly associated with the plasma membrane, held in place by, for example, actin filaments or its movements restricted by the congested intracellular environment. These factors exclude using spatial displacement as the sole criterion in finding the fission point. Indeed, the disappearance of dynamin and/or clathrin fluorescence from the evanescent field as measured in TIRF studies was shown to imprecisely reflect the scission point, as -7 ± 22 s from the point of the disappearance of the dynamin fluorescence in the evanescent field40.
In addition, it is unclear whether the break of the lipid connection precedes the disassembly of the protein scaffold or the opposite. In the former case, imaging methods can only disclose the point when the protein connection is broken and the vesicle is detached. It is practically impossible to disclose the fission point using imaging methods. In the latter case, the fission point coincides with the detachment point. In our data, the existence of Stage e possibly suggests that scission is more like a gradual process that involves the complete disassembling of proteins (e.g., dynamin) connecting the vesicle and cell membrane no matter which case is true.
The multi-dimensional approach used in our experiments allows us to accurately pinpoint the time of vesicle detachment as well as the onset of the super twist. Even though we are unable to determine the fission point, it must occur after the start of the super twist, and before or at the point of vesicle detachment. Thus, we are able to narrow down the time range that fission happens with a high confidence level, i.e. fission must occur within the range of 2.4 ± 1.4 s (Mean ± SD, n = 45) that encompass Stages d and e.
Super twist-like motion and abortive scission events. In the experiments, we also observed that dynamin accumulation/disassembly may happen without successful scission. Figure S13 shows such a case in which dynamin peaked at 75 s and disassembled in the following frames of images, without subsequent vesicle detachment. While a smaller twist action of ~ 50º was detected, it failed to produce a large enough torque or twisting action to drive scission. These may represent failed scission attempts and we name these actions as “super twist-like actions”. It is unclear why fission may fail but a plausible explanation is that excessive resistance stalled the super twist. After the super twist-like action, dynamin disassembled, possibly suggesting that the GTP hydrolysis leads to the disassembly of dynamin helix.