Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme

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SYSD: Symposium SKM Dissertation Prize 2025

SYSD 1: SKM Dissertation Prize Symposium

SYSD 1.4: Invited Talk

Monday, March 17, 2025, 11:00–11:30, H2

Mean back relaxation and mechanical fingerprints: simplifying the study of active intracellular mechanics — •Till Münker — Third Institute of Physics - Biophysics, University of Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen

Vital cellular functions rely on the interplay between the viscoelastic mechanical properties of the cytoplasm and the active force generated by the consumption of metabolic energy. However, quantifying these properties poses significant challenges due to the complexity of the physical quantities and the elaborate, low-throughput experimental methods required for their investigation. We propose two techniques to meet these challenges. Firstly, we introduce a mechanical fingerprint that reduces the complexity of intracellular active mechanical properties to six parameters. We demonstrate how the fingerprint captures changes in mechanics upon disrupting cytoskeletal components and enables identification of individual cells through their unique fingerprint. By introducing a phase space of resistance, activity, and fluidity, we observe how position in phase space correlates with expected cell function. Secondly, we introduce the Mean Back Relaxation (MBR) as a novel statistical tool to determine the breaking of detailed balance in confined systems. In living cells, we observe surprising relations between the MBR and intracellular activity. Strikingly, by deploying this relation, we determined the mechanical properties of MDCK cells by purely passive observations. Together, these techniques simplify the quantification of intracellular mechanics, reducing experimental complexity while enhancing throughput.

Keywords: Cell mechanics; Viscoelasticity; Rheology; Non-equilibrium