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    Cytoskeletal transition in patterned cells correlates with interfacial energy model
    (London [u.a.] : Royal Society of Chemistry, 2014) Müller, A.; Meyer, J.; Paumer, T.; Pompe, T.
    A cell's morphology is intricately regulated by microenvironmental cues and intracellular feedback signals. Besides biochemical factors, cell fate can be influenced by the mechanics and geometry of the surrounding matrix. The latter point was addressed herein, by studying cell adhesion on two-dimensional micropatterns. Endothelial cells were grown on maleic acid copolymer surfaces structured with stripes of fibronectin by microcontact printing. Experiments showed a biphasic behaviour of actin stress fibre spacing in dependence on the stripe width with a critical size of approx. 15 μm. In a concurrent modelling effort, cells on stripes were simulated as droplet-like structures, including variations of interfacial energy, total volume and dimensions of the nucleus. A biphasic behaviour with regard to cell morphology and area was found, triggered by the minimum of interfacial energy, with the phase transition occurring at a critical stripe width close to the critical stripe width found in the cell experiment. The correlation of experiment and simulation suggests a possible mechanism of the cytoskeletal rearrangements based on interfacial energy arguments.
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    Cardio-respiratory coordination increases during sleep apnea
    (San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2014) Riedl, M.; Müller, A.; Kraemer, J.F.; Penzel, T.; Kurths, J.; Wessel, N.
    Cardiovascular diseases are the main source of morbidity and mortality in the United States with costs of more than $170 billion. Repetitive respiratory disorders during sleep are assumed to be a major cause of these diseases. Therefore, the understanding of the cardio-respiratory regulation during these events is of high public interest. One of the governing mechanisms is the mutual influence of the cardiac and respiratory oscillations on their respective onsets, the cardiorespiratory coordination (CRC). We analyze this mechanism based on nocturnal measurements of 27 males suffering from obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. Here we find, by using an advanced analysis technique, the coordigram, not only that the occurrence of CRC is significantly more frequent during respiratory sleep disturbances than in normal respiration (p-value<10-51) but also more frequent after these events (p-value<10-15). Especially, the latter finding contradicts the common assumption that spontaneous CRC can only be observed in epochs of relaxed conditions, while our newly discovered epochs of CRC after disturbances are characterized by high autonomic stress. Our findings on the connection between CRC and the appearance of sleep-disordered events require a substantial extension of the current understanding of obstructive sleep apneas and hypopneas.