Cell Motility on Varying Substrate Stiffness

Cellular Mechanosensation: Correlating Cytoskeletal Protein Expression to Varying Substrate Stiffness

Effects of micropost spacing and stiffness on cell motility

R.D. Sochol, A.T. Higa, R.R.R. Janairo*, S. Li†, L. Lin‡ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA 668 Sutardja Dai Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley & University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA Department of Bioengineering, University of Cali...

Mechanochemical model of cell migration on substrates of varying stiffness.

Cells propel themselves along a substrate by organizing structures at the leading edge called lamellipodia that contain the actin network, myosin, integrin, and other proteins. In this article, we describe a quantitative model that couples the response of stretch-sensitive proteins in the lamellipodia to the dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton, therefore allowing the cell to respond to different...

Cell shape and substrate rigidity both regulate cell stiffness.

Cells from many different tissues sense the stiffness and spatial patterning of their microenvironment to modulate their shape and cortical stiffness. It is currently unknown how substrate stiffness, cell shape, and cell stiffness modulate or interact with one another. Here, we use microcontact printing and microfabricated arrays of elastomeric posts to independently and simultaneously control ...

Modeling the Impact of Cell Type and Substrate Stiffness on Cell Traction

We propose a mathematical model to suggest a unified explanation behind the observation that some cell types tend to spread more efficiently on stiff substrates and are able to adapt their internal stiffness to the external stiffness. Our model also offers an explanation regarding the dependence of cell spreading on cell type. We show that our model for stiffness adaptation is in good agreement...