Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 27: Physics of Cells III

BP 27.7: Talk

Thursday, March 17, 2011, 16:00–16:15, ZEU 250

High-Resolution Cell Mechanics with a Dual Optical Trap — •Florian Schlosser, Christoph F. Schmidt, and Florian Rehfeldt — Drittes Physikalisches Institut, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany

Cells communicate with their environment biochemically, but also through mechanical interactions. Cells can generate contractile forces through their acto-myosin network and use these forces to actively probe the mechanical response of their surroundings. This results in cellular reactions, a process called mechano-sensing.

Our dual optical-trap setup allows us to perform high-resolution measurements of the forces a cell generates between two fibronectin-coated beads by analyzing the fluctuations of the beads at high spatial and temporal resolution. Simultaneously, we actively probe the visco-elastic properties of the same cell by applying oscillatory forces.

Here, we present data of contractile forces and elastic responses of 3T3 fibroblasts and use biochemical perturbations (e.g. blebbistatin, a potent non muscle myosin II inhibitor) to elucidate the contributions of the different cytoskeletal elements to the active and passive mechanical properties of a cell.