title: Dynamics of Cellular Reorientation on a Substrate under Biaxial Cyclic Stretches.
abstract: It is widely known that mechanical signals such as force, geometry, and substrate elasticity can be utilized by cells to regulate their structures, functions, and behaviors. However, the exact nature of the underlying mechanisms of cellular mechanosensing is unclear. Recently, extensive experiments on cellular reorientation dynamics on a substrate under biaxial cyclic stretches were performed, and the measured behaviors were found to be incompatible with existing theories. Here, we show that a theoretical model based on both tensile and shearing forces on focal adhesions (FAs) is capable of reproducing the new experimental data. This work provides important mechanistic insights into how behaviors of FAs can strongly affect cellular reorientation dynamics on a cyclically stretched substrate.
authors.affiliation: †Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: †Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xiaofeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: ‡School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, United States.
authors.forename: Huajian
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D004548:Elasticity; D022001:Focal Adhesions / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D040542:Mechanotransduction, Cellular; D008954:Models, Biological; D022502:Stress Fibers / Q000378:metabolism; D013314:Stress, Mechanical
keywords: Cell reorientation; cyclic stretches; focal adhesion; stress fiber