Berlin 2018 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 10: Postersession II

BP 10.57: Poster

Montag, 12. März 2018, 17:30–19:30, Poster C

The influence of Rac1 on motility into 3D extracellular matrices andmechanical properties — •Tom Kunschmann, Stefanie Puder, and Claudia Tanja Mierke — Biological Physics Division, Peter Debye Institute for Soft Matter Physics, University of Leipzig, Germany

The formation of membrane ruffles and lamellipodia promotes the motility of adherent cells. In 2D cell motility assays, these protrusions are important for sensing of the microenvironment and initiation of substrate adhesions. The influence of structures such as lamellipodia or invadopodia for providing cellular mechanical properties and 3D motility of cells is still not yet clear. Hence, we showed that Rac1 affects cellular mechanical properties and facilitates the invasion in 3D microenvironments. We analyzed whether fibroblast cell lines genetically deficient for Rac1 possess altered mechanical properties such as cellular deformability and altered motility into 3D ECM. Thus, we analyzed Rac1 wild type and knockout cells for alterations in cellular deformability using an optical cell stretcher. We found that Rac1 knockout cell lines were pronouncedly more deformable compared to Rac1 wild type cells. The increased mechanical deformability of Rac1 knockout cells is suggested to be responsible for their reduced motility in dense 3D ECM. Thus, we investigated whether increased deformability of Rac1 knockout cells suppresses cellular motility into 3D collagen fiber matrices. Rac1 wild type cells displayed increased motility in 3D compared to Rac1 knockout cells. These results were validated by using Rac1 Inhibitor EHT1864 which revealed similar results.