Funds from this grant support research by Patrick Oakes and Jordan Beach, both Professors in the Department of Cell and Molecular Physiology at Loyola University Chicago, to better understand how a cell’s energy supply is linked to the mechanical forces it generates—an important gap in our understanding of how cells regulate energy resources to coordinate basic functions such as movement, division, and changes in shape. Oakes, Beach, and their team will use Sloan funding to measure how cellular ATP levels (the primary form of usable energy in cells) relate to force generation by the actomyosin cytoskeleton, an intracellular protein network that drives contraction and is a key player in cell division and motion. The work will be done using live cells, with experiments that both increase and decrease ATP  availability to see how the actomyosin skeleton responds, as well as with experiments that stimulate cytoskeletal activity to see how cellular ATP levels and other major energy-consuming processes respond. The project will also examine these relationships at finer spatial scales inside cells. Using imaging-based metabolic sensors and force-measurement methods, the research team will map and quantify where ATP is higher or lower inside the cell and compare those patterns with where contractile forces are generated. They will also field a series of experiments where ATP levels are manipulated in localized regions while observing the behavior of the corresponding section of the cytoskeletal network. If successful, the project will produce quantitative measurements describing how cellular energy availability and mechanical force generation influence one another at both whole-cell and subcellular scales, along with datasets and analysis that can help clarify how cells regulate mechanical behavior.