1112.5804 (Aaron F. Mertz et al.)

Scaling of Traction Forces with Size of Adherent Cell Colonie    [PDF]

Aaron F. Mertz, Shiladitya Banerjee, Yonglu Che, Guy K. German, Ye Xu, Callen Hyland, M. Cristina Marchetti, Valerie Horsley, Eric. R. Dufresne

To understand how the mechanical properties of tissues emerge from
interactions of multiple cells, we measure traction stresses of cohesive
colonies of 1--27 cells adherent to soft substrates. We find that traction
stresses are generally localized at the periphery of the colony and the total
traction force scales with the colony radius. For large colony sizes the
scaling appears to approach linear, suggesting the emergence of an apparent
surface tension of order $10^{-3} \unit{N/m}$. A simple model of the cell
colony as a contractile elastic medium coupled to the substrate captures the
spatial distribution of traction forces and the scaling of traction forces with
the colony size.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.5804