title: Dynamics of cell area and force during spreading.
abstract: Experiments on human pulmonary artery endothelial cells are presented to show that cell area and the force exerted on a substrate increase simultaneously, but with different rates during spreading; rapid-force increase systematically occurred several minutes past initial spreading. We examine this theoretically and present three complementary mechanisms that may accompany the development of lamellar stress during spreading and underlie the observed behavior. These include: 1), the dynamics of cytoskeleton assembly at the cell basis; 2), the strengthening of acto-myosin forces in response to the generated lamellar stresses; and 3), the passive strain-stiffening of the cytoskeleton.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Dental Sciences and Fritz Haber Center for Molecular Dynamics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Yifat
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Brill-Karniely
authors.affiliation: Institute of Dental Sciences and Fritz Haber Center for Molecular Dynamics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Noam
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nisenholz
authors.affiliation: Center for Vascular Biology Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Kavitha
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rajendran
authors.affiliation: Center for Vascular Biology Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Quynh
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Dang
authors.affiliation: Center for Vascular Biology Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Ramaswamy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Krishnan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Dental Sciences and Fritz Haber Center for Molecular Dynamics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Electronic address: assaf.zemel@ekmd.huji.ac.il.
authors.forename: Assaf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zemel
mesh_terms: D000205:Actomyosin / Q000378:metabolism; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000378:metabolism; D002465:Cell Movement; D048429:Cell Size; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000378:metabolism*; D004548:Elasticity; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D011554:Pseudopodia / Q000378:metabolism*; D011651:Pulmonary Artery / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D013314:Stress, Mechanical
chemical_list: D000205:Actomyosin