Dresden 2006 – scientific programme

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AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 40: Poster Session II

AKB 40.17: Poster

Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 16:30–19:30, P3

The effect of differentiation on the deformability of cells — •Franziska Lautenschläger, S. Schinkinger, M. Jungnitsch, J. Schwarz, and J Guck — Universität Leipzig, Abteilung Physik der weichen Materie, Linnéstr. 5, 04103 Leipzig, Germany

From molecular biology it is known that during differentiation there are characteristic changes in the three main constituents of the cytoskeleton-microtubules, actin, and intermediate filaments. Since the cytoskeleton is the main structural element in cells these changes should be reflected to varying degrees in their mechanical properties. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the impact of differentiation and specific toxins on cell elasticity with the Optical Stretcher. In our experiments we used human neural precursor cells (HPCM) which were differentiated into glia cells, GABAergic, and dopaminergic neurons as well as hematopoietic precursor cells (NB4 cells) treated with retinoic acid (ATRA) to differentiate them into mature blood cells. Our results show an increasing stiffness and a decreasing variance during differentiation. This suggests using deformability as a new cell marker for stem cell characterization and sorting.