Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 10: Postersession II

BP 10.10: Poster

Monday, March 12, 2018, 17:30–19:30, Poster C

Stress fiber network organization during cell spreading on micropatterned substrates — •Dimitri Probst¹, Julia Jäger¹, Elena Kassianidou², Anne-Lou Roguet³, Sanjay Kumar², and Ulrich S. Schwarz¹ — ¹Institute for Theoretical Physics and BioQuant, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany — ²Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, USA — ³École Polytechnique, Palaisaeu, France

Cell spreading, adhesion and migration are strongly modulated by both biochemical and physical cues from the environment. The latter is particularly evident for the actomyosin system, whose organization is strongly determined by adhesive geometry, stiffness and topography of the extracellular environment. In order to understand how the actomyosin system dynamically responds to the adhesive geometry of its environment, we have studied cell spreading onto rectangular fibronectin frames with varying gap locations that determine final cell shape. We find that the global spreading dynamics onto a given pattern can be well predicted with a Cellular Potts Model describing the interplay between adhesion and tension, and that the distribution of stress fiber (SF) orientations can be predicted by establishing that discrete SFs form tangentially behind the advancing lamellipodium at spatial intervals of approximately 2.0 μm and temporal intervals of approximately 15 minutes. Because these times are comparable with the overall spreading times, cells have a memory of their spreading history through the organization of the SF network, despite the fact that their final shape is mainly dictated by the pattern geometry.