Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 16: Posters: Cell adhesion, mechanics and migration

BP 16.13: Poster

Monday, March 16, 2015, 17:30–19:30, Poster A

Mechano-sensing of cells on elastic substrates — •Galina Kudryasheva and Florian Rehfeldt — 3rd Institute of Physics Biophysics, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany

It is nowadays well acknowledged that cellular functions, morphology and also differentiation is dependent on the mechanical micro-environment. For example, human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) can be guided to differentiate into various cell types when cultured on appropriate elastic substrates. While the entire differentiation process takes several days up to weeks, 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. We use this approach to analyze the mechanical cell-matrix interactions of hMSCs and differentiated cells during their mechano-differentiation process. We use an immunofluorescence approach to label stress fibers and analyze cytoskeletal morphology by fluorescence microscopy. hMSCs and differentiated cells were plated on elastic poly-acrylamide (PA) hydrogels with different Young’s moduli E (1-30 kPa). We analyze cell shape and alignment of stress fibers by an order parameter as early morphological marker and extract corresponding material constants that show distinct differences during the differentiation process.