Ruiz-Franco José, van Der Gucht Jasper
Laboratory of Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Netherlands.
Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022 Jun 30;10:931776. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.931776. eCollection 2022.
Cells residing in living tissues apply forces to their immediate surroundings to promote the restructuration of the extracellular matrix fibres and to transmit mechanical signals to other cells. Here we use a minimalist model to study how these forces, applied locally by cell contraction, propagate through the fibrous network in the extracellular matrix. In particular, we characterize how the transmission of forces is influenced by the connectivity of the network and by the bending rigidity of the fibers. For highly connected fiber networks the stresses spread out isotropically around the cell over a distance that first increases with increasing contraction of the cell and then saturates at a characteristic length. For lower connectivity, however, the stress pattern is highly asymmetric and is characterised by force chains that can transmit stresses over very long distances. We hope that our analysis of force transmission in fibrous networks can provide a new avenue for future studies on how the mechanical feedback between the cell and the ECM is coupled with the microscopic environment around the cells.
存在于活组织中的细胞会对其紧邻的周围环境施加力，以促进细胞外基质纤维的重构，并将机械信号传递给其他细胞。在此，我们使用一个极简模型来研究这些由细胞收缩局部施加的力如何在细胞外基质的纤维网络中传播。特别地，我们表征了力的传递是如何受到网络连通性和纤维弯曲刚度的影响。对于高度连通的纤维网络，应力在细胞周围各向同性地扩散，扩散距离首先随细胞收缩的增加而增加，然后在一个特征长度处达到饱和。然而，对于连通性较低的情况，应力模式高度不对称，其特征是存在能够在很长距离上传递应力的力链。我们希望我们对纤维网络中力传递的分析能够为未来关于细胞与细胞外基质之间的机械反馈如何与细胞周围微观环境耦合的研究提供一条新途径。
