Spatial distributions of pericellular stiffness in natural extracellular matrices are dependent on cell-mediated proteolysis and contractility.

ABSTRACT: Bulk tissue stiffness has been correlated with regulation of cellular processes and conversely cells have been shown to remodel their pericellular tissue according to a complex feedback mechanism critical to development, homeostasis, and disease. However, bulk rheological methods mask the dynamics within a heterogeneous fibrous extracellular matrix (ECM) in the region proximal to a cell (pericellular region). Here, we use optical tweezers active microrheology (AMR) to probe the distribution of the complex material response function (α=α'+α″, in units of µm/nN) within a type I collagen ECM, a biomaterial commonly used in tissue engineering. We discovered cells both elastically and plastically deformed the pericellular material. α' is wildly heterogeneous, with 1/α' values spanning three ord

SUBMITTER: Keating M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5526213 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature