Quantitative analysis of
cytoskeletal network structures
5 µm
MTMF
IF (keratin)
microfilaments(MF)
persistence tensile length [µm] modulus [a.u.]
MF 18 300MT >100 150IF 1 1
intermediatefilaments (IF)
microtubules(MT)
Cytoskeleton
Keratin filaments
Role of cytoskeletal filaments
1. cell and tissue architecture
2. cell migration
Motility of leukaemia cells - vimentin
ATRAPMA
NB4 - Vimentin
neutrophil
Retinoic Acid Syndrome
Tensegrity (R.B. Fuller, D. Ingber)
microtubulesmicrotubules
intermediate filaments
F-actin
substrate anchor
Keratin networks in microgravity
t2µg
control sphingosylphosphorylcholine (SPC)
Regulation of keratin networks
min
F-actin
K8/18
Keratin network morphology
perinuclear
periphery
50 ng/mL TGFα
min
ERK
2 ac
tivat
ion
Seufferlein et al. 1999
control
TGFα (30 min)
Keratin network reorganisation in response to TGFα
control
TGFα, 30 min
control TGFα control TGFα
Structural features of keratin networks
Fitting of random tessellation models
Poisson-Line (PLT) Poisson-Voronoi (PVT) Poisson-Delaunay (PDT)
Iterated tesselations
Bernoulli thinning
Model selected as best fitcontrol TGFα
control PVT / PLT
TGFα PDT / PLT
Actin networks in lamellipodia
Elasticity ~ mesh size4.4
PVT PDT PLT
F-actin
Migration
Stephanie Eckel, Frank Fleischer, Hendrik Schmidt, Volker SchmidtDept. of Stochastics, University Ulm
Paul WaltherDept. of Electron Microscopy, University Ulm
Thomas SeufferleinDept. of Internal Medicine I, University Ulm
Bishr OmaryDept. of Medicine, Stanford University
Tatjana SvitkinaDept. of Biology, University of Pennsylvania
Joachim SpatzDept. of Physical Chemistry, University Heidelberg