Dissertation

Biophysical studies of intracellular and cellular motility

This dissertation combines the use of defined microenvironments, high-resolution fluorescence microscopy, and time-resolved analysis, to study intracellular and cellular motility.

Author: M. Mytiliniou
Date: 16 January 2025
Links: Thesis in Leiden Repository

The first part of the thesis focuses on intracellular transport, particularly organelle motion which occurs inside neurites of neuron-like cells. Changes in organelle transport are investigated for two distinct neurite morphologies, namely neurites that orient randomly on the two-dimensional surface, and neurites which are guided along one-dimension via chemical surface patterning. Additionally, perturbations are introduced which disrupt the intracellular homeostasis, and their effect in combination with the two neurite configurations on organelle transport is explored. The second part, which consists of the last chapter of this thesis, focuses on single-cell migration inside microenvironments comprising topographical features in the form of micropillars. Using two different cell types, we compare two main categories of motile behavior, namely amoeboid and mesenchymal, and furthermore, having arranged the micropillars such as to create different crowding regimes, we explore the effects of the varying space availability on each cell motion type.