Kraning-Rush Casey M, Carey Shawn P, Califano Joseph P, Reinhart-King Cynthia A
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA.
Methods Cell Biol. 2012;110:139-78. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-388403-9.00006-0.
Contractile force generation plays a critical role in cell adhesion, migration, and extracellular matrix reorganization in both 2D and 3D environments. Characterization of cellular forces has led to a greater understanding of cell migration, cellular mechanosensing, tissue formation, and disease progression. Methods to characterize cellular traction stresses now date back over 30 years, and they have matured from qualitative comparisons of cell-mediated substrate movements to high-resolution, highly quantitative measures of cellular force. Here, we will provide an overview of common methods used to measure forces in both 2D and 3D microenvironments. Specific focus will be placed on traction force microscopy, which measures the force exerted by cells on 2D planar substrates, and the use of confocal reflectance microscopy, which can be used to quantify collagen fibril compaction as a metric for 3D traction forces. In addition to providing experimental methods to analyze cellular forces, we discuss the application of these techniques to a large range of biomedical problems and some of the significant challenges that still remain in this field.
在二维和三维环境中，收缩力的产生在细胞黏附、迁移以及细胞外基质重组过程中都起着关键作用。对细胞力的表征有助于更深入地理解细胞迁移、细胞机械传感、组织形成以及疾病进展。如今，用于表征细胞牵引应力的方法可追溯到30多年前，并且已经从对细胞介导的底物运动进行定性比较发展到对细胞力进行高分辨率、高定量的测量。在此，我们将概述在二维和三维微环境中测量力的常用方法。特别关注的是牵引力显微镜，它用于测量细胞在二维平面底物上施加的力，以及共聚焦反射显微镜的应用，该技术可用于量化胶原纤维压实情况，以此作为三维牵引力的一个指标。除了提供分析细胞力的实验方法外，我们还讨论了这些技术在一系列生物医学问题中的应用以及该领域仍然存在的一些重大挑战。
