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Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling
Saturday Speaker Abstracts
12
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.