Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 33: Posters: Neurobiophysics
BP 33.1: Poster
Thursday, March 25, 2010, 17:15–20:00, Poster B1
Influence of bilayer substrate fluidity on neuronal growth — •Lydia Woiterski1, Philipp Rauch1, Dan Minner2, Christoph Naumann2, and Josef Kaes1 — 1Universität Leipzig, Germany — 2Indiana University, Indianapolis, USA
For cell motility it is crucial that cells sense the viscoelasticity of their environment. An important role in this process play focal adhesion complexes where transmembrane proteins of the integrin family bind to proteins of the extracellular matrix or within the cell to the cytoskeleton. Although it is known that the stability of these complexes depends on the stiffness of substrate, the complete mechanism of cell adhesion has not yet been fully understood. A suitable system mimicking the cell surface are tethered bilayers, where the membrane viscosity can be easily modulated by the polymer linker density or the number of bilayer stacks, was established by D. Minner and C. Naumann at the University of Indiana. They showed that the bilayer substrates are stable, have reproducible diffusion properties and that fibroblasts sense the surrounding viscosity of the substrate and change their morphology according to the membrane fluidity. In the present study neuronal cell lines were plated on single tethered bilayers with varied linker density. Preliminary results show that the neurons adhere at all densities but exhibit different dendritic growth - for low bilayer viscosity the growth seems to be faster which is in good agreement with the inverse durotaxis of neurons. This biomimetic system represents a versatile a tool that allows for the quantification of cellular outgrowths, their velocities and can help to understand how these processes form.