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Of special interest is the investigation of the mechanics during cellular dynamics, e.g. cell division or migration. In eukaryotic cells the mechanical properties are mainly determined by the cytoskeleton and thus mechanical data reflect in most cases the status of the actin network. Changes in architecture or composition of the cytoskeleton, or in the activity of actin binding proteins, for instance of myosin creating tension in the network, can be picked up by mechanical measurements. Another focus of recent work is to determine mechanical cues as a function of disease state of cells. We examined here two systems: cell nuclei and cancer cells. (1) Some laminopathies, diseases that are related to the lamin layer of cell nuclei, have been associated with differences in the lamin layer. By expressing mutant lamins in the nucleus of Xenopus oocytes and in fibroblast cells we are able to investigate mechanical reasons of several laminopathies, which has been hypothesized. (2) Cancer cells are thought to be much softer than normal cells, possibly due to different migration or adhesion properties or because of differences in expression levels of certain proteins. However, it is difficult to quantify this difference in mechanics unambiguously since cancerous and normal cells, especially when obtained from patients, exhibit many differences, e.g. in terms of morphology. We have therefore compared two cell lines, which are well characterized in their degree of malignity (or the absence of it for the control cells) and are virtually indistinguishable in terms of morphology, degree of adhesion and so forth. |
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