SKM 2023 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 28: Poster Session II
BP 28.38: Poster
Donnerstag, 30. März 2023, 18:00–20:00, P2/EG
The influence of calcium on the structure of the actin cortex in cell monolayers and single cells — •Christoph Anton1, Lucina Kainka1, Sandra Iden2, and Franziska Lautenschläger1,3 — 1Department of Physics, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany — 2Center of Human and Molecular Biology (ZHMB), Saarland University, Homburg, Germany — 3Center for Biophysics, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
We recently showed that adhesion to a substrate, mediated via integrins, causes significant changes to the structure, mechanics and dynamics of the cellular actin cortex. In tissues, however, cells additionally form cell-cell junctions. Therefore, we investigate how the structure of the actin cortex of healthy and cancerous epithelial cell lines is affected by the transition from single cells to cell monolayers. One important step during this transition is the formation of cell-cell junctions, such as the cadherin-based adherens junctions. These junctions are dependent on the presence of calcium ions. In our work, we varied the extracellular calcium concentration to investigate the effect of cadherin-mediated adhesion and other calcium-based cellular processes on the actin cortex. We used scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to visualize the actin cortex. We applied our filament network tracing algorithm to the SEM images to quantify the structural properties of the actin cortex, such as the mesh hole area. By comparing the cortex parameters of cells within a monolayer with the cortex parameters of isolated cells we plan to characterize the structural changes that are induced by cell-cell contacts and extracellular calcium concentrations.