Impact of the Strength and Affinity of the Integrin-Talin Interaction on the Force-Persistance of Cell Adhesion

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Kay-Eberhard Gottschalk
• Subject Area: Biophysics
• Term: from 2008 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 91564974

Complexes of cell adhesion receptors have evolved to resist external forces. The design principles rendering these complexes force-resistant are poorly understood. Understanding the design principles is important for technological applications like the design of functionalized surfaces in biomedical applications and for understanding the biology of cell adhesion, cell migration and cancer metastasis. One important force-resistant complex is the complex of integrin with talin. This complex is part of the mechanically stable connection between the extracellular matrix and the cytoskeleton. It is involved in tumor progression and auto-immune disease. Using a mutiscale approach ranging from computational design to single-molecule atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies on living cells, we will identify the principles leading to the force-persistance of the complex and determine the influence of this intracellular complex on the extracellular adhesion strength. This research bridges the gap between cell biology and biophysics and will have broad conceptual implications in both fields. It will in detail investigate how energy-dissipation phenomena in the cell can be used to regulate protein function, and how the cell can regulate its energy-dissipation behavior for this task.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• Participating Persons: Professor Dr. Reinhard Fässler; Professor Dr. Gideon Schreiber