Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Saturday Speaker Abstracts

Playing a Tug of War with Membrane Receptors Using the Double Helix Taekjip Ha . Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.

It is now widely appreciated that cancer cells and stem cells can change their cell fate (differentiation, metastasis, etc.) depending on their mechanical environment. Mechanical sensing is likely to be initiated by individual membrane receptor proteins that are in direct contact with the mechanical environment and are also linked to the cytoskeleton. In a sense, cells perform many single molecule mechanical measurements in parallel and process the information before making a critical cell fate decision. In order to understand how molecular level mechanical events trigger a cellular response, we need to examine the forces applied across individual cellular proteins during mechanical signaling. In order to study the mechanical requirements for integrin ‐ mediated cell adhesion that regulates critical cellular functions in adherent cells we utilized our recently developed DNA tether called tension gauge tether (TGT) to study the mechanical requirements of integrin ‐ mediated cell adhesion and activation of Notch receptors.

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