title: Microrheology, stress fluctuations, and active behavior of living cells.
abstract: We report the first measurements of the intrinsic strain fluctuations of living cells using a recently developed tracer correlation technique along with a theoretical framework for interpreting such data in heterogeneous media with nonthermal driving. The fluctuations' spatial and temporal correlations indicate that the cytoskeleton can be treated as a course-grained continuum with power-law rheology, driven by a spatially random stress tensor field. Combined with recent cell rheology results, our data imply that intracellular stress fluctuations have a nearly 1/omega2 power spectrum, as expected for a continuum with a slowly evolving internal prestress.
authors: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
authors: A W C
authors: AW
authors: Lau
authors: B D
authors: BD
authors: Hoffman
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Davies
authors: J C
authors: JC
authors: Crocker
authors: T C
authors: TC
authors: Lubensky
mesh_terms: D002468:Cell Physiological Phenomena; D004548:Elasticity; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D012212:Rheology / Q000379:methods*; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D014783:Viscosity