Comparison of direct and inverse methods for 2.5D traction force microscopy.

ABSTRACT: Essential cellular processes such as cell adhesion, migration and division strongly depend on mechanical forces. The standard method to measure cell forces is traction force microscopy (TFM) on soft elastic substrates with embedded marker beads. While in 2D TFM one only reconstructs tangential forces, in 2.5D TFM one also considers normal forces. Here we present a systematic comparison between two fundamentally different approaches to 2.5D TFM, which in particular require different methods to deal with noise in the displacement data. In the direct method, one calculates strain and stress tensors directly from the displacement data, which in principle requires a divergence correction. In the inverse method, one minimizes the difference between estimated and measured displacements, which req

SUBMITTER: Blumberg JW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8775276 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature