Single Cell Mechanosensitivity to Cyclic Compression Using a Combined Atomic Force Microscope-Confocal System

The experimental measurement of contractile forces generated by cells seeded in scaffolds subjected to cyclic stretching reveals a force-strain relationship that cannot be predicted by passive viscoelastic models. It was demonstrated that cells subjected to higher strain rates were shown to exhibit lower peak forces and lower stiffness than cells subjected to low strain rates [1]. It is hypothesized that this pattern results from increased stress fiber dissociation at high unloading strain rates. However, this hypothesis can only be fully validated by performing single cell experiments with live imaging of cytoskeletal dynamics.© 2010 ASME