Quantifying the Local Mechanical Properties of Cells in a Fibrous Three-Dimensional Microenvironment.

ABSTRACT: Measurements of the mechanical response of biological cells are critical for understanding injury and disease, for developing diagnostic tools, and for computational models in mechanobiology. Although it is well known that cells are sensitive to the topography of their microenvironment, the current paradigm in mechanical testing of adherent cells is mostly limited to specimens grown on flat two-dimensional substrates. In this study, we introduce a technique in which cellular indentation via optical trapping is performed on cells at a high spatial resolution to obtain their regional mechanical properties while they exist in a more favorable three-dimensional microenvironment. We combine our approach with nonlinear contact mechanics theory to consider the effects of a large deformation. This

SUBMITTER: Dagro A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6731457 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature