Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 7: Posters: Cell adhesion, mechanics and migration

BP 7.27: Poster

Montag, 31. März 2014, 17:30–19:30, P3

Cell type specific mechano-sensitivity on elastic hydrogels — •Galina Kudryasheva¹, Florian Rehfeldt¹, and Assaf Zemel² — ¹3rd Institute of Physics - Biophysics, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany — ²Faculty of Dental Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

It is now widely accepted that the mechanical properties of cellular micro-environments are as important in the regulation and function of cellular processes as biochemical ones. Especially striking is the mechanically guided differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) on elastic hydrogels. While the complex differentiation mechanisms take several days up to weeks to fully develop, the structure and dynamics of the acto-myosin fibers can be used as an early morphological marker and modelled using classical mechanics with an active spring model. Using fluorescence microscopy we analyze the cytoskeletal structure of cells cultured on elastic poly-acrylamide (PA) substrates with different Young's moduli E in the physiological range. Quantifying the stress fiber organization by an order parameter S gives insight into the mechano-sensing process and determines the mechanical susceptibility as well as an intrinsic pre-stress of the cell. We use this approach to analyze the mechanical cell-matrix interactions of hMSCS during their mechano-differentiation process and compare them with already committed cell types to gain more insight in the integration of mechanical signals to transcriptional changes.