Related papers: Cell spheroid viscoelasticity is deformation-depen…
We report the simultaneous characterization of time- and force-dependent mechanical properties of adherent cells in the physiologically relevant regime of large forces. We used magnetic tweezers to apply forces to magnetic beads bound to…
Clinically, palpation is one of the important diagnostic methods to assess tumor malignancy. In laboratory research, it is well accepted that the bulk stiffness of the tumor and the surrounding tissue is closely correlated with the…
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…
During the life of animals, epithelial tissues undergo extensive deformations--first to form organs during embryogensis and later to preserve integrity and function in adulthood. To what extent these deformations resemble that of non-living…
Collective cell migration is a highly regulated process involved in wound healing, cancer metastasis and morphogenesis. Mechanical interactions among cells provide an important regulatory mechanism to coordinate such collective motion.…
Mechanical characteristics of single biological cells are used to identify and possibly leverage interesting differences among cells or cell populations. Fluidity---hysteresivity normalized to the extremes of an elastic solid or a viscous…
Tissue fluidity regulates many critical biological processes, including embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. In confluent epithelia, where cell packing fraction is effectively fixed, the prevailing paradigm…
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…
The balance between stretching and bending deformations characterizes shape transitions of thin elastic sheets. While stretching dominates the mechanical response in tension, bending dominates in compression after an abrupt buckling…
Cell walls define a cell shape in bacteria. They are rigid to resist large internal pressures, but remarkably plastic to adapt to a wide range of external forces and geometric constraints. Currently, it is unknown how bacteria maintain…
We study the elastic response of bilayer membranes with fixed projected area to both stretching and shape deformations. A surface tension is associated to each of these deformations. By using model amphiphilic membranes and computer…
A hallmark of biological tissues, viewed as complex cellular materials, is the active generation of mechanical stresses by cellular processes, such as cell divisions. Each cellular event generates a force dipole that deforms the surrounding…
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…
Mechanical properties of the tissue engineering scaffolds are known to play a crucial role in tissue regeneration. Here, we have utilized discrete network and finite element models to study fibrous scaffold mechanics and its dependence on…
The mechanism by which cells measure the dimension of the organ in which they are embedded, and slow down their growth when the final size is reached, is a long-standing problem of developmental biology. The role of mechanics in this…
The size and shape of a large variety of polymeric particles, including biological cells, star polymers, dendrimes, and microgels, depend on the applied stresses as the particles are extremely soft. In high-density suspensions these…
When stretched in one direction, most solids shrink in the transverse directions. In soft silicone gels, however, we observe that small-scale topographical features grow upon stretching. A quantitative analysis of the topography shows that…
A theoretical model for stratified epithelium is presented. The viscoelastic properties of the tissue is assumed to be dependent on the spatial distribution of proliferative and differentiated cells. Based on this assumption, a hydrodynamic…
Two-dimensional (2D) mechanical models of confluent tissues have related the mechanical state of a monolayer of cells to the average perimeter length of the cell cross sections, predicting floppiness or rigidity of the material. For the…
Cell layers eliminate unwanted cells through the extrusion process, which underlines healthy versus flawed tissue behaviors. Although several biochemical pathways have been identified, the underlying mechanical basis including the forces…