Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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PLV: Plenarvorträge

PLV XII

PLV XII: Plenary Talk

Thursday, March 15, 2018, 14:00–14:45, H 0105

From Atomistic Simulations into the Mouse: Learning how to exploit bacterial adhesives as nanoscale probes to map the mechanical strain of tissue fibers. — •Viola Vogel¹, Simon Arnoldini¹, Alessandra Moscaroli², Mamta Chabria¹, Manuel Hilbert², Samuel Heritig³, Roger Schibli², and Martin Behe² — ¹ETH Zurich — ²PSI Villigen — ³Hertig Visualizations

Many novel mechanisms have emerged how mechanical forces can regulate protein and cell functions. This was made possible by an increasingly large toolbox of nano- and microtechnologies to quantify forces and mechanical strains at the molecular and cellular levels. Yet, how to extend those insights towards the tissue level is unclear, due to the lack of force or tissue fiber strain probes. It is thus not known how cell-generated forces acting on tissue fibers might tune the structure*function relationships of proteins and whether this might ultimately regulate spatially directed tissue growth, regeneration, homeostasis, or disease progression. To address this major need, we took advantage of the evolution of bacterial adhesives that specifically target the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin. In wounds or sites of inflammation, tissue fibers are cleaved, either mechanically or enzymatically, which leads to the structural relaxation of tensed tissue fibers. After we had discovered that these bacterial adhesives tightly bind to relaxed but not to highly tensed fibers, we next illustrated that they can be exploited as nanoscale mechanical strain probes at the tissue level.