HOW FAR CELLS CAN FEEL: EFFECTS OF ECM FIBERS

摘要

A rapidly growing body of literature suggests that the passive mechanical environment (i.e., the local mechanical setting and material properties) impacts the formation of multi-cellular structures and cell function, proliferation, migration, and differentiation [1]. Computational modeling and experimental studies suggest that cells grown on top of polyacrylamide (PA) gels are responsive to their pericellular mechanical environment but not to features more than several tens of microns away from the cell [2].