Berlin 2024 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 33: Focus session: Physics of organoids

BP 33.8: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 21. März 2024, 17:15–17:30, H 1028

Rheology in 3D confined spaces: PANC-1 spheroids on polyHEMA-coated substrates using atomic force microscopy — •Isis do Vale Meira Lima, Shruti Kulkarni, Mènie Wiemer, and Manfred Radmacher — Institut für Biophysik, Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Understanding biomechanical properties of living cells and tissues is a relevant foundation in advancing knowledge related to physiological and pathological processes, such as the effects of vascularization in tumor development and metastatic processes. In addition, considering that all types of biological tissues are viscoelastic materials, it becomes necessary to delve into the mechanical response of tissues at multiple time scales. From this point of view, in this work, we have developed a protocol to assemble PANC-1 cells in order to obtain spheroids and quantify their rheological properties using atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique. We used force curves to measure the relaxation response of cell aggregates, extracting the respective Young's modulus, storage and loss modulus from each force curve. PANC-1 cells are originated from a human pancreatic carcinoma. These cells are known to form aggregates, generating a structure which resembles a tumor. To achieve a three-dimensional structure which mimicks the tumor environment, we coated our supports with polyHEMA except at small depressions. Cells will not adhere to the support and aggregate in the depressions. Because of the three dimensional confinement of aggregates it is easy to investigate the tumor-like cell clusters by AFM.

Keywords: AFM; PANC-1 spheroids; polyHEMA; microrheology; tumor environment