Regensburg 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 25: Cell Mechanics II
BP 25.2: Vortrag
Donnerstag, 20. März 2025, 10:00–10:15, H44
Perfect stabilization of biomolecular adhesions under load — •Anton Francis Burnet1,2 and Benedikt Sabass1,2 — 1Department of Veterinary Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80752 Munich, Germany — 2Faculty of Physics and Center for NanoScience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80752 Munich, Germany
Cell focal adhesions are complex molecular assemblies that demonstrate the remarkable capability to adapt to mechanical load by changing their size. Drawing from the molecular mechanisms believed to drive this behavior, we present a minimal adhesion model for mechanically induced aggregation of adhesion molecules. If the internal states of adhesion molecules are coupled to their aggregation dynamics sufficiently strongly, the system becomes instable and unbounded growth ensues. Unexpectedly, the very same type of instability can lead to perfect stability under mechanical load, where adhesions adapt their size to withstand arbitrarily large load without rupturing-a phenomenon we term perfect stabilization. We derive state diagrams characterizing adhesion stability under stationary load and show that perfect stabilization also occurs for dynamic loads on physiologically relevant timescales. Finally, we show that perfect stabilization is a generic phenomenon that can be realized in many different ways by coupling aggregation rates with internal molecular states and argue that the phenomenon has broad implications for understanding cellular mechanics.
Keywords: Cell adhesion; Stochastic clutch model; Mechanical stabilization