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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 27: Posters: Complex Fluids and Soft Matter

BP 27.5: Poster

Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 14:00–16:00, Poster A

Probing the inhomogeneity of intracellular fluids with fluorescence lifetime imaging — •Olivia Stiehl and Matthias Weiss — University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Deutschland

Cellular fluids are crowded with a plethora of macromolecules, supra-molecular complexes, and organelles. These fluids can therefore be expected to display a spatial inhomogeneity on small length scales, i.e. a coexistence of spatially varying environments. So far, the local diffusional mobility of tracer particles has been exploited frequently as a measure for such inhomogeneities. Here, we report on a different approach that is based on local changes of the photophysics of a tracer dye. In particular, we have used fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) to quantify local variations in the photophysics of DASPMI in the cytoplasm of living cells. Due to shortened lifetimes in regions of lower viscosity, this method allowed us to explore local properties of the cytoplasm without a need to interprete complex diffusion data. Our results suggest that the cytoplasm's properties are altered in response to changes in the cells' substrate and alterations in intracellular traffic.