Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1996 Apr;70(4):2008-22.
doi: 10.1016/S0006-3495(96)79767-9.

Imaging the traction stresses exerted by locomoting cells with the elastic substratum method

M Dembo  1 , T Oliver, A Ishihara, K Jacobson
Affiliations

Imaging the traction stresses exerted by locomoting cells with the elastic substratum method

M Dembo et al. Biophys J. 1996 Apr.

Abstract

The cytoskeletal activity of motile or adherent cells is frequently seen to induce detectable displacements of sufficiently compliant substrata. The physics of this phenomenon is discussed in terms of the classical theory of small-strain, plane-stress elasticity. The main results of such analysis is a transform expressing the displacement field of the elastic substrate as an integral over the traction field. The existence of this transform is used to derive a Bayesian method for converting noisy measurements of substratum displacement into "images" of the actual traction forces exerted by adherent or locomoting cells. Finally, the Monte Carlo validation of the statistical method is discussed, some new rheological studies of films are presented, and a practical application is given.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Annu Rev Cell Biol. 1993;9:411-44 - PubMed
    1. Annu Rev Cell Biol. 1987;3:379-421 - PubMed
    1. Cell Motil Cytoskeleton. 1995;31(3):225-40 - PubMed
    1. Annu Rev Biophys Biophys Chem. 1991;20:387-414 - PubMed
    1. J Cell Biol. 1990 Dec;111(6 Pt 1):2513-26 - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources