MATERIAL PROPERTIES OF CELLS CAN BE DETERMINED FROM COMPRESSION EXPERIMENTS OF CELL- GEL CONSTRUCTS

摘要

Mechanical loading has been implicated in regulating cellular behavior which in turn affect tissue development, growth, maintenance and regeneration. The structural components of the cell (cell membrane, transmembrane proteins such as integrins and at least three cytoskeletal networks of actin, microtubules and intermediate filaments) are involved in converting the mechanical loading into biochemical signals which then affect cellular behavior(1). Further, cells are known to alter their cytoskeletal structure during cell division(2), differentiation(3), pathology (4) and in response to mechanical loadingd(5). These changes will probably be reflected in gross material properties of the cell, such as modulus of elasticity. In this work, we describe a system to determine the modulus of elasticity of cells when they are embedded in agarose gel and subjected to compressive loading.