Start-up Funding: Effect of cGMP signaling on cellular stiffness and traction forces (January 2025 to December 2025)

Aims

To investigate how cGMP signaling affects cellular traction forces of different cell types.

Questions and Methods

cGMP and cellular traction forces

• Does cGMP signaling affect the traction forces that cells exert on their environment? Do changes in traction forces affect cell behavior (e.g. migration)?
• A method for measuring traction forces is traction force microscopy (TFM), which is based on the measurement of the deformation of a linear elastic substrate on which the cells are seeded. TFM can be combined with cellular stiffness measurements (using atomic force microscopy (AFM) or scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM)).

Career path

Aylin studied Nano-Science and Physics at the University of Tübingen with a focus on biophysics. She then joined the GRK 2381 “cGMP: From Bedside to Bench” and did her PhD in the lab of Prof. Dr. Tilman Schäffer. During this time, she investigated the effect of cGMP signaling on cellular stiffness using atomic force microscopy and scanning ion conductance microscopy. In collaboration with other labs of the GRK 2381, she found that treatment with cGMP-modulating drugs reduces the stiffness of neuronal growth cones, vascular smooth muscle cells, and platelets. She also investigated the effect of biochemical confinement on platelet properties. During her Boston internship in the lab of Assoc. Prof. Francesca Seta, PhD, she studied the effect of cGMP on arterial stiffness in high fat high sucrose diet-fed mice. Aylin’s postdoc work now focuses on whether and how cGMP signaling affects cellular traction forces of different cell types.

Publications

Balmes A, Rodriguez JG, Seifert J, Pinto-Quintero D, Khawaja AA, Boffito M, Frye M, Friebe A, Emerson M, Seta F, Feil R, Feil S, Schäffer TE. Role of the NO-GC/cGMP signaling pathway in platelet biomechanics. Platelets. 2024;35:2313359. doi: 10.1080/09537104.2024.2313359.

Schaale D, Laspa Z, Balmes A, Sigle M, Dicenta-Baunach V, Hochuli R, Fu X, Serafimov K, Castor T, Harm T, Müller KAL, Rohlfing AK, Laufer S, Schäffer TE, Lämmerhofer M, Gawaz M. Hemin promotes platelet activation and plasma membrane disintegration regulated by the subtilisin-like proprotein convertase furin. FASEB J. 2024 Nov 15;38(21):e70155.

Budbazar E*, Balmes A*, Elliott D, Tintin LP, Kopp T, Feil S, Feil R, Schäffer TE, Seta F. 2025. Pharmacological activation of NO-sensitive guanylyl cyclase ameliorates obesity-induced arterial stiffness. Vascul. Pharmacol. 2025; 159, 107503. doi: 10.1016/j.vph.2025.107503. *Contributed equally.