Researchers Shatter the Glass Theory of Cell Behavior

Researchers in Professor Ning Wang's lab recently discovered the underlying molecular mechanism that allows living cells to adjust their response to force based on the speed with which that force is applied.

Their findings and the model they created to describe it challenges the phenomenological model that has dominated the field of cell mechanics and biophysics during the past decade. That model likened the cell's response to force to the behavior of soft glass. Researchers in Wang's lab revealed that it is not soft glass behavior but rather the nonequilibrium to equilibrium transition of protein-protein noncovalent bonds that govern a cell's response to force.

The theoretical model they created to describe this finding and to predict cell response was confirmed with experimental data from living cells. Their studies further revealed that embryonic stem cells exhibit these behaviors and are less stiff and more fluid-like than differentiated body cells-knowledge that paves the way for finding better approaches to culturing and growing stem cells for medical applications.

The researchers outlined their findings in a paper that appeared October 3 in the online Biophysics Journal. The lead author, Farhan Chowdhury, is a doctoral student in Professor Wang's laboratory. Their collaborators include Deborah Leckband, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Tetsuya Tanaka, an assistant professor in the Department of Animal Sciences.