Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 30: Tissue

BP 30.7: Talk

Thursday, March 14, 2013, 17:00–17:15, H43

Cell Shape and Dynamics on micropatterned Substrates — •Philipp J. Albert and Ulrich S. Schwarz — Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Heidelberg

Micropatterned substrates have been used for cell normalization and to quantitatively study the relation between cell shape and function. In order to design micropatterns, models to predict shape and dynamics of cells are needed. To this end, we combine two previously introduced models. The tension elasticity model (TEM) [1] focuses on strongly contracted shapes which can be predicted correctly on dot pattern substrates. However, the TEM cannot predict dynamical changes, like the movement from one pattern to the next. A two-dimensional cellular Potts model (CPM) [2] combined with directional persistence is used to account for the dynamics of cells on micropatterned substrates. In contrast to earlier applications of the CPM in the context of tissues, in our case the area of cells is not fixed as they can exchange material with the third dimension. We modify the energy function of previous formulations of the CPM to account for this feature as well as to include insights from the TEM and to represent the effect of the adhesive micropattern. We use our model to predict the dynamics of cell shape, spreading and division, and to identify promising patterns for experiments.

[1] I.B. Bischofs, F. Klein, D. Lehnert, M. Bastmeyer and U.S. Schwarz, Biophys. J. 95, 3488 (2008).

[2] F. Graner and J.A. Glazier, Phys. Rev. Lett. 69, 2013 (1992).