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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 30: Tissue

BP 30.8: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 14. März 2013, 17:15–17:30, H43

On the Relevance of Cellular Adhesion for Compartmentalization — •Steve Pawlizak, Anatol Fritsch, and Josef A. Käs — University of Leipzig, Institute for Experimental Physics I, Soft Matter Physics Division, Linnéstraße 5, 04103 Leipzig, Germany

Compartmentalization is a fundamental organization process of cells, which can be demonstrated in vitro by means of a simple model system: When two different populations of suspended cells are mixed, the mixture will eventually segregate into two phases, whereas mixtures of the same cell type will not. Nowadays, the concept of compartmentalization is coming more and more into focus of cancer research because it has been observed that even tumor cells are confined to their original compartment for a relatively long time in their development. For that reason, the understanding of the mechanical principles underlying this process is of great importance. The differential adhesion hypothesis by Malcolm S. Steinberg gives a first explanation by differences in surface tension and adhesiveness of the interacting cells. We are investigating whether cellular adhesion is in fact a necessary or even sufficient factor to characterize compartmentalization and tumor spreading. For our studies, we use healthy and cancerous breast cell lines of different malignancy as well as primary cells from human cervical carcinoma. We apply a broad set of techniques to study their mechanical properties and interactions, including 3D segregation experiments in droplet cultures, optical stretching for whole cell rheology, and AFM to directly measure cell-cell-adhesion forces. The combination of these techniques will help to shed some new light on the role of cellular adhesion.