Berlin 2024 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 8: Poster Session Ia
BP 8.40: Poster
Monday, March 18, 2024, 18:00–20:30, Poster C
Nuclear mechanics across scales: from global deformation to local measurements — •Bart Vos1, Yamini Vadapalli2, Till Muenker1, Ivan Avilov2, Peter Lenart2, and Timo Betz1 — 1Third Institute of Physics, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany — 2Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany
Mechanics play a crucial role in a wide range of cellular processes, from differentiation to division and metastatic invasion. Additionally, mechanical signaling plays an important role in protein expression. Although the mechanical properties of the cytoskeleton, providing shape, motility and mechanical stability to the cell, have been extensively studied, remarkably little is known about the mechanical environment within the nucleus of a cell and the exact mechanisms of force transduction between the cytoplasm to the nucleus.
To address these questions, we apply external deformations to oocytes of different species to observe how cellular deformations can be transmitted to the nucleus, leading to nuclear deformations. We combine this with optical tweezers-based microrheology in the cellular nucleus, allowing a direct comparison between intracellular and intranuclear mechanics. We observe viscoelastic behavior of the nucleoplasm that is profoundly different from the cytoskeleton. In addition, we observe that the nuclear envelope plays an important role by providing stability to the nucleus.
Keywords: Optical tweezers; Cell mechanics; Nuclear mechanics; Oocytes