ArticleBiophysical journal2020
Elastic Anisotropy Governs the Range of Cell-Induced Displacements.
Article in Biophysical journal, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Principal mechanisms of extracellular matrix-mediated cell-cell communication in physiological and tumor microenvironments.The FEBS journal · 2026Review
- Fiber recruitment drives a phase transition of cell polarization at a critical cell spacing in matrix-mediated tissue remodeling.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Traction force and mechanosensitivity mediate species-specific implantation patterns in human and mouse embryos.Science advances · 2025Article
- Compressive instabilities enable cell-induced extreme densification patterns in the fibrous extracellular matrix: Discrete model predictions.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Unexpected softening of a fibrous matrix by contracting inclusions.Acta biomaterialia · 2024Article
- Many-body interactions between contracting living cells.The European physical journal. E, Soft matter · 2024Article
- Mechanical Intercellular Communication via Matrix-Borne Cell Force Transmission During Vascular Network Formation.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2024Article
- Modeling the extracellular matrix in cell migration and morphogenesis: a guide for the curious biologist.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2024Review
- Inference of long-range cell-cell force transmission from ECM remodeling fluctuations.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Hybrid cellular Potts and bead-spring modeling of cells in fibrous extracellular matrix.Biophysical journal · 2023Article
- Accelerated epithelial layer healing induced by tactile anisotropy in surface topography.Science advances · 2023Article
- Effect of hyaluronic acid on microscale deformations of collagen gels.Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials · 2022Article
- Force Transmission in Disordered Fibre Networks.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
- Screening of Self-Assembling of Collagen IV Fragments into Stable Structures Potentially Useful in Regenerative Medicine.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Long-range mechanical coupling of cells in 3D fibrin gels.Molecular biology of the cell · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The unique nonlinear mechanics of the fibrous extracellular matrix (ECM) facilitates long-range cell-cell mechanical communications that would be impossible for linear elastic substrates. Past research has described the contribution of two separated effects on the range of force transmission, including ECM elastic nonlinearity and fiber alignment. However, the relation between these different effects is unclear, and how they combine to dictate force transmission range is still elusive. Here, we combine discrete fiber simulations with continuum modeling to study the decay of displacements induced by a contractile cell in fibrous networks. We demonstrate that fiber nonlinearity and fiber reorientation both contribute to the strain-induced elastic anisotropy of the cell's local environment. This elastic anisotropy is a "lumped" parameter that governs the slow decay of displacements, and it depends on the magnitude of applied strain, either an external tension or an internal contraction, as a model of the cell. Furthermore, we show that accounting for artificially prescribed elastic anisotropy dictates the decay of displacements induced by a contracting cell. Our findings unify previous single effects into a mechanical theory that explains force transmission in fibrous networks. This work may provide insights into biological processes that involve communication of distant cells mediated by the ECM, such as those occurring in morphogenesis, wound healing, angiogenesis, and cancer metastasis. It may also provide design parameters for biomaterials to control force transmission between cells as a way to guide morphogenesis in tissue engineering.
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