Stress relaxation in epithelial monolayers is controlled by the actomyosin cortex.

ABSTRACT: Epithelial monolayers are one-cell thick tissue sheets that line most of the body surfaces, separating internal and external environments. As part of their function, they must withstand extrinsic mechanical stresses applied at high strain rates. However, little is known about how monolayers respond to mechanical deformations. Here, by subjecting suspended epithelial monolayers to stretch, we find that they dissipate stresses on a minute timescale and that relaxation can be described by a power law with an exponential cut-off at timescales larger than ~10 s. This process involves an increase in monolayer length, pointing to active remodelling of cellular biopolymers at the molecular scale during relaxation. Strikingly, monolayers consisting of tens of thousands of cells relax stress with si

SUBMITTER: Khalilgharibi N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7116713 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature