Abstract
It has been reported that glycans play pivotal roles in biomechanical responses of cells. To reveal the roles of glycans in mechanical response of endothelial cells, we observed morphological changes of a murine vascular endothelial cell line F-2 treated with a drug DG, which modifies protein glycosylation. When a confluent cell monolayer was treated with DG in static culture, it formed mesh-like structure in 48 hours. To reveal the reason for the mesh-like structure formation, we measured adhesion strength between the cells and that between the cell and the substrate with laboratory-made testers and found that the mesh-like structure formation was accompanied by an increase in the intercellular adhesion strength and a decrease in the cell-substrate adhesion strength. These changes may facilitate local aggregation of cells in a cell monolayer and thus cause the mesh-like structure.
