Regensburg 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 48: Posters - Bioimaging and Spectroscopy

BP 48.4: Poster

Mittwoch, 9. März 2016, 17:00–19:00, Poster C

Probing the heterogeneity of cellular fluids — Olivia Stiehl, •Claudia Donth, and Matthias Weiss — Universität Bayreuth, Experimentalphysik 1

Cellular fluids, e.g. the cytoplasm, are crowded with macromolecules at concentrations up to 400g/l. Such crowded fluids may feature not only a considerable environmental heterogeneity on the scale of proteins but also diffusive transport on the mesoscale can be expected to exhibit remarkable spatiotemporal fluctuations.

To explore the heterogeneity of cellular and biomimetic fluids on the nano- and mesoscale, we have used fluoresecence lifetime imaging (FLIM), fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), and high-resolution imaging.

Imaging and FCS on mitotic cells suggests a significant heterogeneity of the contiguous nucleo-cytoplasmic fluid on length scales of some micrometers [1,2]. Our FCS results on interphase cells suggest that mesoscale heterogeneities in cytoplasm and nucleoplasm are comparable to those in highly concentrated solutions of established crowding agents such as dextran or PEG.

FLIM experiments on an environment-sensitive molecular rotor indicate a similar heterogeneity of cytoplasm and nucleoplasm on the nanoscale while artificial crowded fluids appear to be somewhat less heterogeneous.

[1] Pawar, Donth & Weiss, Curr. Biol. 24, 1905 (2014).

[2] Schweizer, Pawar, Weiss & Maiato, J. Cell Biol. 210, 695 (2015).