ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2017
Cell volume change through water efflux impacts cell stiffness and stem cell fate.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 292 papers.
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Who cites it
292 citing papers in PubMed, 549 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Environmentally induced cell stiffening shapes metastatic site selection by tuning the immune vulnerability of cancer cells.Immunity · 2026Article
- Rational design of immunological programs for functional regenerative niches.Materials today. Bio · 2026Review
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- Progerin cross-linking stiffens the nucleus and impairs mechanosensation in Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.Journal of cell science · 2026Article
- Effect of two-dimensional spatial confinement on platelet mechanics.Biophysical reports · 2026Article
- Active and probe-free intracellular rheology via phase-sensitive thermoviscous flows.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Cells Dynamically Adapt Their Nuclear Volumes and Proliferation Rates During Single to Multicellular Transitions.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Inertial sensing of water content in tumor spheroids.Science advances · 2026Article
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- The Potential Role of Tumor Microorganisms in Remodeling Tumor Biomechanical Signals and Application Strategies in Tumor Therapy.Microorganisms · 2026Review
- Actin-membrane interface stress regulates Arp2/3-branched actin density during lamellipodial protrusion.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Mechanical interplay between adipose tissues and disease progression.Bioengineering & translational medicine · 2026Review
- Cytoskeletal prestress homeostasis is a biological principle that governs living cell structure and function.Mechanobiology in medicine · 2026Review
- Unified Transcriptome and Mechanics Map of the Intact Mammalian Preimplantation Embryo In Situ.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Collagen Scaffold Viscoelasticity Regulates Muscle Cell Phenotype.Advanced healthcare materials · 2026Article
232 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Cells alter their mechanical properties in response to their local microenvironment; this plays a role in determining cell function and can even influence stem cell fate. Here, we identify a robust and unified relationship between cell stiffness and cell volume. As a cell spreads on a substrate, its volume decreases, while its stiffness concomitantly increases. We find that both cortical and cytoplasmic cell stiffness scale with volume for numerous perturbations, including varying substrate stiffness, cell spread area, and external osmotic pressure. The reduction of cell volume is a result of water efflux, which leads to a corresponding increase in intracellular molecular crowding. Furthermore, we find that changes in cell volume, and hence stiffness, alter stem-cell differentiation, regardless of the method by which these are induced. These observations reveal a surprising, previously unidentified relationship between cell stiffness and cell volume that strongly influences cell biology.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.