In vivo modulation of morphogenetic movements in Drosophila embryos with femtosecond laser pulses

The complex biomechanical events associated with embryo development are investigated
in vivo
, by using femtosecond laser pulse-induced ablation combined with multimodal nonlinear microscopy. We demonstrate controlled intravital ablations preserving local cytoskeleton dynamics and resulting in the modulation of specific morphogenetic movements in nonmutant
Drosophila
embryos. A quantitative description of complex movements is obtained both in GFP-expressing systems by using whole-embryo two-photon microscopy and in unlabeled nontransgenic embryos by using third harmonic generation microscopy. This methodology provides insight into the issue of mechano-sensitive gene expression by revealing the correlation of
in vivo
tissue deformation patterns with Twist protein expression in stomodeal cells at gastrulation.