The ASM Study of Elastic Properties of Rat Fibroblasts, Lacking Vimentin

First, the rat fibroblast line REF52(Vim -/-) lacking a vimentin gene, using the CRISPR system Cas9, was generated. Than we analysed the migration of REF52(Vim -/-) cells, and compared it to the migration of normal REF52 cells. The average migration rate of cells lacking vimentin does not differ from the normal cells (0.6 um/min). However, using the computer program, DiPer [5], we have found that the directional persistence of migration of the cells lacking vimentin was significantly violated (Figure 1). We assume that one of the roles of vimentin IF in the cell is the stabilizing the cellular polarity. Earlier, we demonstrated that the elastic properties of cells can play a major role in their motility [2] and could be used as a marker for metastatic potential [3].