Berlin 2012 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 27: Posters: Cytoskeletal Filaments
BP 27.15: Poster
Thursday, March 29, 2012, 17:30–19:30, Poster A
Diameter of Keratin 8/18 — •Ines Martin1, Anke Leitner1, Masoud Amirkhani1, Vladislav Krzyzanek2, Michael Beil3, Harald Herrmann4, Paul Walther5, and Othmar Marti1 — 1Institute for Experimental Physics, Ulm University, Ulm — 2Institute of Medical Physics and Biophysics, Münster University, Münster — 3Internal Medicine I, Ulm University, Ulm — 4Division of Molecular Genetics, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg — 5Central Facility of Electron Microscopy, Ulm University, Ulm
The cytoskeleton of epithelial cells consists of three types of filament systems: microtubules, intermediate filaments (IFs) and actin filaments. In our work, we have a closer look at intermediate filaments, which are responsible for the stiffness of cells and responses to mechanical stimuli.
Because of their heterogeneous nature, it is not exactly known how IFs are arranged over their cross-section, even though some measurements of diameter, mass per length and cross-section exist. Therefore we compared the diameter of filaments with different techniques: Transmission Electron Microscopy with negative staining, Scanning Electron Microscopy of freeze-dried samples with tungsten coating, Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) with and without glutaraldehyde fixation and Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS). Additionally we studied the behavior of Keratin 8/18 adsorbed on a substrate with SEM of freeze-dried samples. Here we could see flattening of some of the filaments, from which one can conclude in agreement with STEM data that the IFs are not very densely packed.