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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 16: Poster Session I

BP 16.42: Poster

Dienstag, 27. März 2007, 17:00–19:30, Poster D

Mimicking E-cadherin mediated cell adhesion with synthetic lipid membranes — •Susanne Fenz and Kheya Sengupta — Institute of Bio- and Nanosystems 4: Biomechanics, Research Center Jülich, D-52425 Jülich, Germany

Mobility of cell adhesion molecules on the cell surface plays an important role in the formation of cell-cell adhesion. In order to distinguish active transport from passive diffusion we set up a biomimetic system. A supported bilayer decorated with the extracellular domain of the homophilic cell adhesion molecule E-cadherin (E-cad) mimics the surface of one cell and a vesicle that also exhibits E-cad acts as the other cell. The adhesion process is observed with reflection interference contrast microscopy (RICM) which enables us to reconstruct shape and fluctuations of the membrane. From these data membrane tension and adhesion energies can be calculated. We found that E-cad induced strong binding of the vesicle indicated by an increase of the adhesion energy and strong reduction of the fluctuations of the vesicles' membrane as compared to a negative control. Simultaneously we measured the change in the diffusion constant in the plane of the bilayer following adhesion of vesicles as a function of the adhesion strength.