TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weigl, Franziska
A1  - Blum, Carina
A1  - Sancho, Ana
A1  - Groll, Jürgen
T1  - Correlative Analysis of Intra– Versus Extracellular Cell Detachment Events via the Alignment of Optical Imaging and Detachment Force Quantification
JF  - Advanced Materials Technologies
N2  - In recent decades, hybrid characterization systems have become pillars in the study of cellular biomechanics. Especially, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is combined with a variety of optical microscopy techniques to discover new aspects of cell adhesion. AFM, however, is limited to the early-stage of cell adhesion, so that the forces of mature cell contacts cannot be addressed. Even though the invention of Fluidic Force Microscopy (FluidFM) overcomes these limitations by combining the precise force-control of AFM with microfluidics, the correlative investigation of detachment forces arising from spread mammalian cells has been barely achieved. Here, a novel multifunctional device integrating Fluorescence Microscopy (FL) into FluidFM technology (FL-FluidFM) is introduced, enabling real-time optical tracking of entire cell detachment processes in parallel to the undisturbed acquisition of force-distance curves. This setup, thus, allows for entailing two pieces of information at once. As proof-of-principle experiment, this method is applied to fluorescently labeled rat embryonic fibroblast (REF52) cells, demonstrating a precise matching between identified force-jumps and visualized cellular unbinding steps. This study, thus, presents a novel characterization tool for the correlated evaluation of mature cell adhesion, which has great relevance, for instance, in the development of biomaterials or the fight against diseases such as cancer.
KW  - Fluorescence Microscopy
KW  - FluidFM technology
KW  - detachment force quantification
Y1  - 2022
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-318544
SN  - 2365-709X
VL  - 7
IS  - 11
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Peindl, Matthias
A1  - Göttlich, Claudia
A1  - Crouch, Samantha
A1  - Hoff, Niklas
A1  - Lüttgens, Tamara
A1  - Schmitt, Franziska
A1  - Pereira, Jesús Guillermo Nieves
A1  - May, Celina
A1  - Schliermann, Anna
A1  - Kronenthaler, Corinna
A1  - Cheufou, Danjouma
A1  - Reu-Hofer, Simone
A1  - Rosenwald, Andreas
A1  - Weigl, Elena
A1  - Walles, Thorsten
A1  - Schüler, Julia
A1  - Dandekar, Thomas
A1  - Nietzer, Sarah
A1  - Dandekar, Gudrun
T1  - EMT, stemness, and drug resistance in biological context: a 3D tumor tissue/in silico platform for analysis of combinatorial treatment in NSCLC with aggressive KRAS-biomarker signatures
JF  - Cancers
N2  - Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is discussed to be centrally involved in invasion, stemness, and drug resistance. Experimental models to evaluate this process in its biological complexity are limited. To shed light on EMT impact and test drug response more reliably, we use a lung tumor test system based on a decellularized intestinal matrix showing more in vivo-like proliferation levels and enhanced expression of clinical markers and carcinogenesis-related genes. In our models, we found evidence for a correlation of EMT with drug resistance in primary and secondary resistant cells harboring KRAS\(^{G12C}\) or EGFR mutations, which was simulated in silico based on an optimized signaling network topology. Notably, drug resistance did not correlate with EMT status in KRAS-mutated patient-derived xenograft (PDX) cell lines, and drug efficacy was not affected by EMT induction via TGF-β. To investigate further determinants of drug response, we tested several drugs in combination with a KRAS\(^{G12C}\) inhibitor in KRAS\(^{G12C}\) mutant HCC44 models, which, besides EMT, display mutations in P53, LKB1, KEAP1, and high c-MYC expression. We identified an aurora-kinase A (AURKA) inhibitor as the most promising candidate. In our network, AURKA is a centrally linked hub to EMT, proliferation, apoptosis, LKB1, and c-MYC. This exemplifies our systemic analysis approach for clinical translation of biomarker signatures.
KW  - EMT
KW  - drug resistance
KW  - invasion
KW  - stemness
KW  - 3D lung tumor tissue models
KW  - KRAS biomarker signatures
KW  - boolean in silico models
KW  - targeted combination therapy
Y1  - 2022
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-270744
SN  - 2072-6694
VL  - 14
IS  - 9
ER  -