Dresden 2020 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 17: Poster V

BP 17.18: Poster

Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 14:00–16:00, P2/1OG

The effect of oxygen deprivation on mechanical properties of HEK293 cells — •Giulio Bianchi^1,2, Doreen Biedenweg³, Ricardo H. Pires², and Oliver Otto² — ¹Physiolab, University of Florence, Florence, Italy — ²ZIK HIKE, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany — ³University of medicine of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

Hypoxia plays an important role in triggering a variety of diseases and is also an important stimulus during embryogenesis. Despite our detailed understanding of the molecular events associated with oxygen starvation, its consequences to the mechanical stability of the cell remain to be fully scrutinized. Using recombinant expression of fluorescently labeled Hypoxia Inducible Factor-1 (HIF-1) in HEK293 cells, we have monitored inducement of cellular response to a 1% oxygen atmosphere by epifluorescence microscopy to study modifications in the cytoskeleton. We link this molecular state of the cells to changes in the mechanical phenotype as a label-free functional parameter. Performing real-time deformability cytometry on HEK293 cells at different times after inducing hypoxia, our results demonstrate a significant increase in the elastic modulus after 12h, an effect that becomes reversed after 48h. Using fluorescence-based methods we have correlated our findings to an increased number of apoptotic cells 24h after induction of hypoxia.