Dresden 2009 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 18: Regulation and Signaling

BP 18.7: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 26. März 2009, 11:45–12:00, HÜL 186

Dynamics of receptor-mediated signal transduction in living cells analyzed by correlation spectroscopy — •Steffen Steinert¹, Felix Neugart¹, Andrea Zappe¹, Deborah Buk², Lutz Graeve², Peter Scheurich³, and Jörg Wrachtrup¹ — ¹3. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart — ²Biologische Chemie und Ernährungswissenschaften, Universität Hohenheim — ³Institut für Zellbiologie und Immunologie

Malfunctions of signaling cascades can cause serious diseases such as Alzheimer or Multiple Sclerosis. Thus, it is of high relevance to have an elementary understanding of functionality, stoichiometry and dynamics of signaling processes. However, membrane dynamics of many important hormone and cytokine receptors are still poorly understood. A drawback of biochemical in-vitro techniques is their potential introduction of artifacts due to the analysis of dead cells and the usage of several reagents. Instead, we employ highly sensitive optical methods which are capable of detecting proteins even at the single molecule level in living cells. Among the applied optical techniques are pulsed Total-Internal-Reflection-Fluorescence-microscopy (TIRF), Fluorescence-Correlation-Spectroscopy (FCS) and Fluorescence-Cross-Correlation-Spectroscopy (FCCS). By these optical techniques we can determine spatial and temporal parameters of signaling components in-vivo at physiological concentrations and temperatures. As model systems we are looking particularly into the receptors of Ciliary-Neurotrophic-Factor(CNTF) and Tumor-Necrosis-Factor(TNF).