Dresden 2026 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 14: Poster Session II

BP 14.1: Poster

Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 18:00–21:00, P2

Controlling Cell Motility and Morphology by Microscale Stripe Patterns — •Henrik Groh and Matthias Weiss — University of Bayreuth, Experimental Physics I, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany

Cells are highly responsive to the architecture of the substrate on which they adhere. In particular, cell morphology and motility can be influenced by providing microstructured adhesion patterns, e.g. fibronectin-coated lanes of varying width, as this determines how cellular adhesion sites form and organize. To study this in more detail, we generated fibronectin-coated lanes through the Primo technique with widths ranging from 2.5 µ m to 40 µ m on which highly migratory breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231) adhered. As the lane width was changed, cells exhibited significant changes in their morphology, including alterations in aspect ratio and orientation angle relative to the lanes. In addition, the cells’ motility, specifically velocity and migration mode composition, underwent pronounced changes as the lane width decreased. Our findings provide important insights into how cell migration might be guided with simple physico-chemical cues and highlight the potential of micro-patterned substrates as a tool for cancer cell migration analyses, possibly providing a core mechanism that underlies cell migration in development and disease.

Keywords: Cell Motility and Morphology; Fibronectin stripes; Microenvironment/-patterning; Substrate geometry; Migration modes