Università di Firenze View Institution's Website 2 articles published in JoVE Biology The Multifaceted Benefits of Protein Co-expression in Escherichia coli Alessandra Stefan1,2, Alessandro Ceccarelli1, Emanuele Conte1, Alejandro Montón Silva1, Alejandro Hochkoeppler1,2 1Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna, 2CSGI, Department of Chemistry, University of Firenze Protein co-expression is a powerful alternative to the reconstitution in vitro of protein complexes, and is of help in performing biochemical and genetic tests in vivo. Here we report on the use of protein co-expression in Escherichia coli to obtain protein complexes, and to tune the mutation frequency of cells. Bioengineering Measurement of Tension Release During Laser Induced Axon Lesion to Evaluate Axonal Adhesion to the Substrate at Piconewton and Millisecond Resolution Massimo Vassalli1, Michele Basso2, Francesco Difato3 1Institute of Biophysics, National Research Council of Italy, 2Dipartimento di Sistemi e Informatica, Università di Firenze, 3Department of Neuroscience and Brain Technologies, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia We measured the tension release in an axon that was partially lesioned with a laser dissector by simultaneous force spectroscopy measurement performed on an optically-trapped probe adhered to the membrane of the axon. The developed experimental protocol evaluates the axon adhesion to the culture substrate.