Analysis of initial cell spreading using mechanistic contact formulations for a deformable cell model.

ABSTRACT: Adhesion governs to a large extent the mechanical interaction between a cell and its microenvironment. As initial cell spreading is purely adhesion driven, understanding this phenomenon leads to profound insight in both cell adhesion and cell-substrate interaction. It has been found that across a wide variety of cell types, initial spreading behavior universally follows the same power laws. The simplest cell type providing this scaling of the radius of the spreading area with time are modified red blood cells (RBCs), whose elastic responses are well characterized. Using a mechanistic description of the contact interaction between a cell and its substrate in combination with a deformable RBC model, we are now able to investigate in detail the mechanisms behind this universal power law. The

SUBMITTER: Odenthal T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3798278 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature