Wavefront engineering microscopy to study 3D mechanotransduction in living cells

We present an experimental system based on the use of a spatial light modulator which enables to perform simultaneously 3D optical manipulation and optical sectioning. This has been achieved by modifying the wave front of the trapping beam with properly diffractive optical elements displayed on a computer controlled spatial light modulator. We demonstrated the capability of the system in two experimental schemes, in a first one we performed a 3D optical scanning of 6 trapped beads by displacing the beads through a fixed imaging plane. In a second one we scan the imaging plane and simultaneously compensate for the movement of the objective in order to keep the trapping plane at a fixed position