Regensburg 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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

BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 29: Multicellular Systems

BP 29.7: Vortrag

Dienstag, 8. März 2016, 11:45–12:00, H45

Driving forces of cellular arrangement during early embryogenesis of Caenorhabditis elegans — •Rolf Fickentscher, Philipp Struntz, and Matthias Weiss — University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

We have studied mechanical cues in the early embryogenesis of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans by means of a custom-made lightsheet microscope. This approach enabled us to acquire the trajectories and division axes/times of cells in embryos with fluorescently labeled nuclei over several hours. Furthermore, imaging membrane labeled embryos revealed cellular volumes and shapes as a function of time. In order to alter time and length scales during embryogenesis, we have used RNAi methods and different temperatures.

We had shown earlier that cellular trajectories can be modeled accurately in a purely mechanical framework during early embryogenesis [1], i.e. early cell organization is determined by the cells’ quest for a position with least repulsive interactions among themselves and the eggshell. By altering the temperature, we show now that cellular velocities in the embryo exhibit an Arrhenius-scaling. Hence biochemical processes like adhesion and remodeling of the cytoskeleton determine the forces which then drive cellular motion. Furthermore, our data highlights a correlation between cell volumes and the respective cell-cycle durations. Based on our experimental data, we propose a minimal model for this phenomenon and relate it to observations in RNAi-treated animals.

[1] R. Fickentscher, P. Struntz & M. Weiss, Biophys. J, 105 (2013)