Invited Talk

Mechanical characterization of neural organoids in development and disease

Ulm University, Institute for Biophysics, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11 89081 Ulm, Germany

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During cancer invasion and development neuronal tissues remodel due to cellular forces. Probing the interplay between forces and tissue material properties at timescales of remodeling is challenging. Main reason is the difficulty in applying forces in living neuronal tissue from seconds to hours.

In my talk I present experiments performed in my group probing tissue mechanics in Gliobastoma-brain organoids, physiological in vitro systems for brain tumor invasion, as well as in mouse retinal organoids.

We grow retina organoids displaying major retinal cell types from mouse embryonic stem cells. In a collaboration with the Ninkovic lab, we culture tumor-infused brain cancer organoids derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). To perform mechanical quantification, we inject ferrofluid droplets as mechanical micro-actuators. We observed strain responses under constant stress across four orders of magnitude, up to hours, and find that the creep compliance in both systems follows a weak power law in time with a scaling exponent indicating solid-like behavior. Our measurements demonstrate that (1) neuronal tissues remodel in a scale-free manner and (2) maintain solid-like properties across windows of development. With our experiments we aim to contribute to an understanding of the mechanics underlying neurodevelopment and tumor invasion.