Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 27: Posters: Cytoskeletal Filaments

BP 27.9: Poster

Thursday, March 29, 2012, 17:30–19:30, Poster A

Active Microrheology: A new approach to determine mechanical properties of assembled networks — •Tobias Paust¹, Ines Martin¹, Michael Beil², Harald Herrmann³, and Othmar Marti¹ — ¹Institute for Experimental Physics, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany — ²Internal Medicine I, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany — ³German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany

Macro- and microrheology is extensively used to characterize complex networks of biopolymers. From these data one infers mechanical properties affecting migration or the response to external stresses. So far macro- and microrheology give similar but not identical responses. The reason for this is still under debate.

In this work we explore the possibility of two point microrheology to determine locally the complex tensorial elastic response of heterogeneous networks. We use the measurements to find possible differences between macro- and microrheology. A careful analysis of the data provides additionally the frequency response of the complex elastic tensor.

As a test system we have investigated keratin 8/18 network extracted from epithelial pancreatic cancer cells. We compare the data to measurements of in vitro assembled keratin 8/18 networks.