ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America1997
Cell locomotion and focal adhesions are regulated by substrate flexibility.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1997. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1,204 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
1,204 citing papers in PubMed, 3,013 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mechanical forces stimulate Golgi export.The Journal of cell biology · 2026Article
- Optical Detection of Cellular Signals at Material Interfaces.Advanced healthcare materials · 2026Review
- High-Density Type I Collagen Promotes IFN-γAdvanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Stress-Adaptive Biomaterials With Tunable Yielding Architectures Regulate Organoid Morphogenesis.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Environmentally induced cell stiffening shapes metastatic site selection by tuning the immune vulnerability of cancer cells.Immunity · 2026Article
- Basigin (CD147) and calpain 4 (CapnS1) are partners in the generation of traction force but not in mechanosensing.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2026Article
- Impact of Stiffness and Cell-Binding Motif Availability on the Cell-Specific Response to Collagen-Based Macromolecular Materials.Biomacromolecules · 2026Article
- Cell Mechanics in Cancer: Integrating Mechanotransduction Pathways Within the Tumor Microenvironment.Journal of cellular physiology · 2026Review
- Enhanced cell contact and planarian tissue extract increase DNA replication and viability for neoblast cultivation.iScience · 2026Article
- Double Sided Traction Force Microscopy: A Method to Confine Cells for Physiologically Relevant Force Measurements.Cytoskeleton (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2026Article
- The application of experimental models for the drug discovery for digestive tumors.Molecular cancer · 2026Review
- Transforming Fragile Hydrogel Chips Into Standardized Cartridges via Contact Line Pinning for Robust Microfluidics.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Traction force generation in Plasmodium sporozoites is modulated by a surface adhesin.Journal of microscopy · 2026Article
- Glassy adhesion dynamics govern transitions between sub-diffusive and super-diffusive cancer cell migration on viscoelastic substrates.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Accessible and cost-effective methods for patterning cell monolayers on compliant substrates.PloS one · 2026Article
- Biomechanical Phenotyping Reveals Unique Mechanobiological Signatures of Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Dimensional memory in glioblastoma mechanics: Traction force analysis of cells cultured in 2D versus 3D collagen environments.Bioactive materials · 2026Article
- Biophysical Considerations in Cell Fusion.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Computational models in directed cell migration.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Review
- PKM2 mediates the glycolytic response to matrix stiffness in lung fibroblasts.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Article
1,144 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
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Responses of cells to mechanical properties of the adhesion substrate were examined by culturing normal rat kidney epithelial and 3T3 fibroblastic cells on a collagen-coated polyacrylamide substrate that allows the flexibility to be varied while maintaining a constant chemical environment. Compared with cells on rigid substrates, those on flexible substrates showed reduced spreading and increased rates of motility or lamellipodial activity. Microinjection of fluorescent vinculin indicated that focal adhesions on flexible substrates were irregularly shaped and highly dynamic whereas those on firm substrates had a normal morphology and were much more stable. Cells on flexible substrates also contained a reduced amount of phosphotyrosine at adhesion sites. Treatment of these cells with phenylarsine oxide, a tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor, induced the formation of normal, stable focal adhesions similar to those on firm substrates. Conversely, treatment of cells on firm substrates with myosin inhibitors 2,3-butanedione monoxime or KT5926 caused the reduction of both vinculin and phosphotyrosine at adhesion sites. These results demonstrate the ability of cells to survey the mechanical properties of their surrounding environment and suggest the possible involvement of both protein tyrosine phosphorylation and myosin-generated cortical forces in this process. Such response to physical parameters likely represents an important mechanism of cellular interaction with the surrounding environment within a complex organism.
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.