Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help
BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 5: Posters: Biopolymers and Biomaterials
BP 5.19: Poster
Monday, March 22, 2010, 17:15–20:00, Poster B1
PEG-Pillars as Force-Sensor-Arrays — •Sabri Rahmouni1,2, Aaron Lindner1, Tamas Haraszti1, and Joachim Spatz1,2 — 1Institut für Biophysikalische Chemie, Heidelberg, Germany — 2Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung, Stuttgart, Germany
The measurement of forces in biological systems is a very wide field of activity that led to a large variety of experimental approaches, e.g. optical and magnetic tweezers, atomic force microscopy, deformation of hydrogels and the bending of micropillars. All these techniques have their specific range of application, force sensitivity and resolution. In this work we present PEG (polyethylenglykol) based micropillar-force-sensor-systems for measurments in the sub nanonewton regime. When compared to silica- or PDMS-pillars the softer PEG-pillars provide a notably higher and easily tunable force sensibility. Our novel way of construction allows a direct variation of the separation, diameter, stiffness and functionalisation of the PEG-pillars. We show first applications of different PEG-pillar-arrays for analysis of the acting forces in actin-networks.