We used laser nanodissection to study the nature, magnitude and distribution of forces at cell-cell contacts during tissue morphogenesis in live Drosophila embryos. We designed two set-ups coupling a near infrared femtosecond laser to either an inverted fluorescence microscope or a spinning-disk confocal microscope. We show that the developed tools are able to locally disrupt the acto-myosin network while preserving the integrity of the membranes. With these systems, we could explore the

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... ibution of cortical elements and relaxation of cell-cell contacts after local ablation.