Berlin 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 38: Focus: Rheology II (joint focus with DRG)
CPP 38.1: Hauptvortrag
Freitag, 30. März 2012, 09:30–10:00, C 130
The Rheology of Biological Cells — Mathias Sander1, Benjamin Tränkle1, Pablo Fernandez2, Pramod Pullarkat2, Lutz Heymann3, Nuri Aksel3, and •Albrecht Ott1,2 — 1Biologische Experimentalphysik, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, Germany — 2former address: Experimentalphysik 1, Universität Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany — 3Technische Mechanik und Strömungsmechanik, Universität Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
The mechanical properties of biological cells are important for many biological processes, among them embryogenesis, wound-healing and cancer. They are determined by the cytoskeleton, an active polymer gel, whose properties are poorly understood. Here we study cell rheological properties using a home built, single-cell rheometer. It consists of a single cell that is suspended between two parallel plates of cell-size. We observe that active and passive cell mechanical properties are clearly separated by their timescales. We show that the passive properties can be decomposed into a linear superposition of an elastic and a plastic response. While the elastic response can be easily understood from the mechanical properties of the cell cytoskeleton, the plastic response remains difficult to understand given current molecular knowledge. We present a novel technique, cell monolayer shearing. Here we create a single layer of about 106 isolated cells that adhere to the top and bottom plates of a standard rheometer. We use Fourier transform rheology to determine the degree of nonlinearity of the cell mechanical response. We show that we can assess cell adhesion-rupture in a very quantitative way. We present other interesting applications.