Physisorbed polymer-tethered lipid bilayers consisting of phospholipids and lipopolymers show remarkable materials properties. In these planar membrane systems, lipopolymers act as crowding agents with profound influence on membrane organization, lipid dynamics, and membrane elasticity. Such biomembrane-mimicking supramolecular assemblies are well suited as cell substrates for the analysis of cellular mechano-sensing because individual linkers are free to assemble into immobilized linker clusters underneath focal adhesions, thus allowing cell spreading. Furthermore, substrate stiffness of polymer-tethered membranes can be systematically adjusted either by altering the degree of stacking in a polymer-tethered multi-bilayer stack or by varying the lipopolymer molar concentration in a single polymer-tethered lipid bilayer. Experiments on different mechano-sensitive cell lines are presented, which demonstrate the functionality of these cell substrates in the presence of ECM-cell-mimicking and cell-cell-mimicking linkages.<br/>

Probing cellular mechano-sensitivity using biomembrane-mimicking cell substrates of adjustable stiffness

249th National Meeting (2015)

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