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Substrate stress relaxation regulates cell spreading
Open accessAbstract
Studies of cellular mechanotransduction have converged upon the idea that cells sense extracellular matrix (ECM) elasticity by gauging resistance to the traction forces they exert on the ECM. However, these studies typically utilize purely elastic materials as substrates, whereas physiological ECMs are viscoelastic, and exhibit stress relaxation, so that cellular traction forces exerted by cells remodel the ECM. Here we investigate the influence of ECM stress relaxation on cell behaviour through computational modelling and cellular experiments. Surprisingly, both our computational model and experiments find that spreading for cells cultured on soft substrates that exhibit stress relaxation is greater than cells spreading on elastic substrates of the same modulus, but similar to that of cells spreading on stiffer elastic substrates. These findings challenge the current view of how cells sense and respond to the ECM. Studies of cellular mechanotransduction commonly use elastic substrates, whereas biological substrates are viscoelastic, exhibiting stress relaxation. Here, the authors show through computational modelling and experiments that viscoelastic substrates can stimulate cell spreading to a greater extent than purely elastic substrates with the same initial stiffness.
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Cited by
Hydrogels with tunable stress relaxation regulate stem cell fate and activity
Chaudhuri, O., Gu, L., Klumpers, D., Darnell, M., Bencherif, S. A., Weaver, J. C., Huebsch, N., Lee, H.-P., Lippens, E., Duda, G. N., et al. (2016) · Nature Materials · doi:10.1038/nmat4489 · Cited by 2,443
Self-citationEffects of extracellular matrix viscoelasticity on cellular behaviour
Chaudhuri, O., Cooper-White, J., Janmey, P. A., Mooney, D. J., & Shenoy, V. B. (2020) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2612-2 · Cited by 2,224
Self-citationA practical guide to hydrogels for cell culture
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Self-citationThe stiffness of living tissues and its implications for tissue engineering
Guimarães, C. F., Gasperini, L., Marques, A. P., & Reis, R. L. (2020) · Nature Reviews Materials · doi:10.1038/s41578-019-0169-1 · Cited by 1,515
Metadata
- Authors
- Chaudhuri, O., Gu, L., Darnell, M., Klumpers, D., Bencherif, S. A., Weaver, J. C., Huebsch, N., & Mooney, D. J.
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2015-02-19
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 6364-6364
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2029378715
- Cited by
- 889
- References
- 5
- FWCI
- 33.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- Licence
- www.springernature.com/gp/researchers/text-and-data-mining (tdm)
- www.springernature.com/gp/researchers/text-and-data-mining (vor)
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