Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10
QUANTIFYING CELL ADHESION USING
SINGLECELL FORCE SPECTROSCOPY
Anna Taubenberger, Jens Friedrichs and Daniel J. Müller
Biotechnological Center, University of Technology Dresden, Tatzberg 47-51,
01307 Dresden, Germany, and Biosystems Science and Engineering,
ETH Zürich, Mattenstr. 26, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
daniel.mueller@bsse.ethz.ch
10.1 ON THE IMPORTANCE OF CELL ADHESION
Adhesive interactions of cells with their surrounding regulate cell growth,
differentiation, migration and survival in multicellular organisms and
are therefore essential to tissue homeostasis.
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Adhesive interactions
are mediated by different types of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs),
mainly cadherins, integrins, selectins and adhesion molecules of the
immunoglobulin family. CAMs are transmembrane proteins, composed of an
intracellular domain that interacts with cytoplasmic proteins including the
cytoskeleton and an extracellular domain that speciically binds to adhesion
partners.
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CAMs mediate homotypic (cadherins) and heterotypic (selectins,
integrins) interactions between cells as well as interactions between cells
and extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins (mainly integrins). Since adhesive
interactions of CAMs are essential to cell physiology as well as pathology, their
basic binding and regulation mechanisms are of great interest. This chapter
presents an overview of methods that allow detection and quantiication of
cell adhesion, with an emphasis on atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based
single-cell force spectroscopy (SCFS).
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