Regensburg 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 49: Posters - Cell Mechanics and Migration & Physics of Cancer

BP 49.15: Poster

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

Non-equilibrium mechanics of suspended cells probed by dual optical traps — •Florian Schlosser, Christoph F. Schmidt, and Florian Rehfeldt — Drittes Physikalisches Institut - Biophysik, Georg-August Universität Göttingen

Cells sense and respond to their mechanical environment. Besides their well characterized biochemical interactions, they also communicate through mechanical interactions. They actively probe the mechanical properties of their surroundings with contractile forces. Key player in the generation of those forces is the actomyosin cytoskeleton.

We use a dual optical trap to suspend cells between two fibronectin-coated polystyrene beads. Analyzing the correlated motion of the beads allows us to dissect the non-equilibrium fluctuations that the cell generates. By applying oscillatory forces, we are able to simultaneously probe the viscoelastic properties of the cell. Using a force-feedback allows us to apply constant forces to a cell and monitor its response. With biochemical perturbation experiments using blebbistatin and nocodazole to interfere with the actomyosin cytoskeleton or microtubules we show that myosin motors are the key element for contractile force generation. We combine our optical trap with a confocal microscope to directly image LifeAct and non-muscle Myosin-II transfected cells to monitor the distribution of the actomyosin cortex during the trapping experiments.