Related papers: Quantification of cell contractile behavior based …
Two types of high-strength composite hydrogels possessing the structure of interpenetrating polymer networks were synthesized via free-radical polymerization of acrylamide carried out straight within the matrix of plant or bacterial…
It is established that the mechanical properties of hydrogels control the fate of (stem) cells. However, despite its importance, a one-to-one correspondence between gels' stiffness and cell behaviour is still missing from literature. In…
Animal cells in tissues are supported by biopolymer matrices, which typically exhibit highly nonlinear mechanical properties. While the linear elasticity of the matrix can significantly impact cell mechanics and functionality, it remains…
We apply a recently developed model of cytoskeletal force generation to study a cell intrinsic contractility, as well as its response to external loading. The model is based on a non-equilibrium thermodynamic treatment of the…
High-strength composite hydrogels cellulose-polyacrylamide were synthesized by free-radical polymerization of acrylamide conducted inside the previously formed physical network of regenerated plant cellulose. Partial hydrolysis of the amide…
The development of traction-force microscopy, in the past two decades, has created the unprecedented opportunity of performing direct mechanical measurements on living cells as they adhere or crawl on uniform or micro-patterned substrates.…
Animal cells use traction forces to sense the mechanics and geometry of their environment. Measuring these traction forces requires a workflow combining cell experiments, image processing and force reconstruction based on elasticity theory.…
Animal cells are active, contractile objects. While bioassays address the molecular characterization of cell contractility, the mechanical characterization of the active forces in cells remains challenging. Here by confronting theoretical…
Tissue engineering aims to grow artificial tissues \emph{in vitro} to replace those in the body that have been damaged through age, trauma or disease. A recent approach to engineer artificial cartilage involves seeding cells within a…
Using a minimal model of cells or cohesive cell layers as continuum active elastic media, we examine the effect of substrate thickness and stiffness on traction forces exerted by strongly adhering cells. We obtain a simple expression for…
Collective behaviors in cellular systems are regulated not only by biochemical signalling pathways but also by intercellular mechanical forces, whose quantification in contractile monolayers remains poorly understood. Here, by integrating…
Many morphogenetic processes involve mechanical rearrangement of epithelial tissues that is driven by precisely regulated cytoskeletal forces and cell adhesion. The mechanical state of the cell and intercellular adhesion are not only the…
Epithelial cell layers on soft elastic substrates or pillar arrays are commonly used as model systems for investigating the role of force in tissue growth, maintenance and repair. Here we show analytically that the experimentally observed…
Fibre-reinforced hydrogels are promising materials for biomedical applications due to their strength, toughness, and tunability. However, it remains unclear how to design fibre-reinforced hydrogels for use in specific applications due to…
Connecting cell behavior to tissue shape and mechanics is a key challenge in the physics of morphogenesis. Cytoskeletal turnover precludes a fixed reference state, and tensions are actively generated independently of strain; so conventional…
In tissue development, wound healing, and cancer invasion, coordinated cell motion arises from active forces produced by the cells. The relationship between force and motion remains unclear, however, because the forces result from a sum of…
An adhesively stressed thin film of a soft hydrogel confined between two rigid flat substrates auto-roughens with its dominant wavelength exhibiting pronounced dependence on the film thickness (H). A linear stability analysis confirmed that…
The measurement of cellular traction forces on soft elastic substrates has become a standard tool for many labs working on mechanobiology. Here we review the basic principles and different variants of this approach. In general, the…
The mechanics of animal cells is strongly determined by stress fibers, which are contractile filament bundles that form dynamically in response to extracellular cues. Stress fibers allow the cell to adapt its mechanics to environmental…
A novel modelling technique using finite element analysis to mimic the mechanoresponse of cell-laden biomaterial is proposed for the use in bioinks and other tissue engineering applications. Here a hydrogel-based composite biomaterial…