Controlling the microenvironment to investigate single cell mechanobiology, adhesion, and function
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- I developed hydrogel platforms mimicking physical properties of body tissues to study how cells sense and exert physical forces. Cells respond to mechanical cues at contacts with the extracellular matrix and other cells by altering their behavior and structure. Thus, hydrogel platforms mimicking rigidity and spatial organization of the in vivo cell microenvironment enable critical experiments to probe mechanosignaling pathways. I have advanced hydrogel platforms for single cell biomechanics by characterizing hydrogel materials, optimizing methods to determine cell-generated tractions on compliant substrates, and co-developing a technique to create high-fidelity protein patterns on hydrogel platforms. Our protein patterning method achieves high protein transfer efficiency, pattern accuracy, and pattern yield. With collaborators, I have applied my contributions to study how fibroblasts alter their contractility in response to different extracellular matrix ligands and how epithelial cells regulate their cell-cell adhesion based on the rigidity of a cell-cell adhesion protein, E-cadherin. In summary, the tools I advanced during my PhD enable new mechanobiology studies to identify and characterize the force-dependent properties of junctional proteins and examine how pathways are activated by manipulating cell shape and size.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2018; ©2018 |
| Publication date | 2018; 2018 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Denisin, Aleksandra Kirillovna |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Pruitt, Beth |
| Thesis advisor | Pruitt, Beth |
| Thesis advisor | Heilshorn, Sarah |
| Thesis advisor | Nelson, William |
| Degree committee member | Heilshorn, Sarah |
| Degree committee member | Nelson, William |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Bioengineering. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Aleksandra Kirillovna Denisin. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Bioengineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2018. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2018 by Aleksandra Kirillovna Denisin
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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