ArticleNature methods2018
A comparison of methods to assess cell mechanical properties.
Article in Nature methods, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 286 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
286 citing papers in PubMed.
- Force-Locking DNA Hairpin Probes for High-Throughput and Cumulative Detection of Intercellular Molecular Tensions.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Real-Time Biophysical Phenotyping and Sorting of Transiting Cells Along a Constriction Microchannel.Micromachines · 2026Article
- An integrated nanophotonic SPRM microsystem for real-time, label-free quantification of single-cell adhesion dynamics.Microsystems & nanoengineering · 2026Article
- Moderately Reduced Contractility Decreases Epithelial Cell-Cell Contact Rupture Under Large External Stretch.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Atomic force microscopy-based nanomechanical signatures as cancer biomarkers in a nutshell.FEBS letters · 2026Review
- Automation and improvement of WBC mechanical profiling in deformability cytometry.Biophysical journal · 2026Article
- Advancing mechanobiology from single molecules to complex cellular systems.Nature nanotechnology · 2026Review
- Cell Mechanics in Cancer: Integrating Mechanotransduction Pathways Within the Tumor Microenvironment.Journal of cellular physiology · 2026Review
- Massart iron oxide nanoparticles in mechanobiology.Nanoscale advances · 2026Review
- Mechanomedicine.Nature reviews bioengineering · 2026Article
- Enhancement of accuracy and precision of cell Young's modulus measurement: FEM optimization and algebraic compensation.Biomedical optics express · 2026Article
- Inline mechano-vibration holography for simultaneous phase and elasticity mapping of soft samples.Biomedical optics express · 2026Article
- Article
- Plectin affects cell viscoelasticity at small and large deformations.Biophysical journal · 2026Article
- Macrophages Mediate Mesoscale Brain Mechanical Homeostasis.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- At the Pointy End of Mechanobiology: AFM for Transient Biomechanical Analysis.Advanced healthcare materials · 2025Review
- Microhand Platform Equipped with Plate-Shaped End-Effectors Enables Precise Probing of Intracellular Structure Contribution to Whole-Cell Mechanical Properties.Micromachines · 2025Article
- Review
- Laser-emission vibrational microscopy of microdroplet arrays for high-throughput screening of hyperlipidemia.Light, science & applications · 2025Article
- Investigation of Viscoelastic Properties of Macrophage Membrane-Cytoskeleton Induced by Gold Nanorods in Leishmania Infection.Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
226 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
22 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The mechanical properties of cells influence their cellular and subcellular functions, including cell adhesion, migration, polarization, and differentiation, as well as organelle organization and trafficking inside the cytoplasm. Yet reported values of cell stiffness and viscosity vary substantially, which suggests differences in how the results of different methods are obtained or analyzed by different groups. To address this issue and illustrate the complementarity of certain approaches, here we present, analyze, and critically compare measurements obtained by means of some of the most widely used methods for cell mechanics: atomic force microscopy, magnetic twisting cytometry, particle-tracking microrheology, parallel-plate rheometry, cell monolayer rheology, and optical stretching. These measurements highlight how elastic and viscous moduli of MCF-7 breast cancer cells can vary 1,000-fold and 100-fold, respectively. We discuss the sources of these variations, including the level of applied mechanical stress, the rate of deformation, the geometry of the probe, the location probed in the cell, and the extracellular microenvironment.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.