Regensburg 2010 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 32: Posters: Physics of Cells

BP 32.17: Poster

Donnerstag, 25. März 2010, 17:15–20:00, Poster B1

Cellular force generation and transmission in 3T3 fibroblasts — •Florian Schlosser¹, Daisuke Mizuno², Florian Rehfeldt¹, and Christoph F. Schmidt¹ — ¹Drittes Physikalisches Institut, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany — ²Organization for the Promotion of Advanced Research, Kyushu Univ., Fukuoka, Japan

Biological cells constantly communicate with their environment. Besides biochemical interactions, cells can also sense their mechanical micro-environment and external forces. Key players in the mechano-sensing and -transduction processes are acto-myosin stress fibers that generate contractile forces.

To elucidate the mechanistic details of the physical interactions between cells and their surrounding, we use a dual optical trap to perform high-resolution measurements of cellular force fluctuations. Monitoring the displacement fluctuations of two fibronectin-coated beads attached to opposite sides of a cell and analyzing their correlated motions in conjunction with active probing of the cell with oscillating forces allows us to measure simultaneously the overall forces the cell generates and the fraction of that force transmitted to the environment. We present data of force fluctuations and cell stiffness of 3T3 fibroblasts obtained by such active and passive microrheology measurements. To distinguish non muscle myosin II - based activity from other effects, we used blebbistatin, a potent and specific inhibitor of non-muscle myosin II.