Formation of stress fibers in adult stem cells
(B08)
Subject Area
Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
Term
from 2011 to 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 28586557
Biological cells respond to mechanical cues as they do to biochemical signals. Despite many experimental studies on mechano-sensitivity of cells, a detailed understanding of the underlying biophysical principles is still lacking. This project focuses on the early stage of mechano-guided differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells and aims at elucidating the structure and organization of cytoskeletal elements and their temporal evolution. We will employ high resolution microscopy together with state-of-the-art biochemical techniques to visualize and control the development of the cytoskeleton in parallelized time lapse imaging under physiological conditions established within the second funding period. Concurrently, stochastic geometric image and statistical pattern recognition methods will be developed, based on filament sensing and statistical multiscale methods developed in the previous funding period, that render significant structure and change of structure information in nearly real time, to efficiently process the information gained from these experiments.
DFG Programme
Collaborative Research Centres
