Micropost array for force mapping of vascular smooth muscle cells

Cheng, Qi; Almasri, Mahmoud; Sun, Zhe; Meininger, Gerald A.

doi:10.1109/icsens.2010.5690288

Cited by 4 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Experimental studies indicated that there is no apparent difference in morphology between cells growing on MFSAs and these on continuous PDMS surface [87], which provides valid foundation for subsequent researches. Afterwards, numerous experiments conducted on micropost arrays exhibited that traction forces around the center region are minute while they are larger obviously at the boundary of the cell [26,27,87]. Moreover, cells tend to contract toward physical center in order to achieve balance when residing on the bed of microposts; thus, the traction forces are centripetal [26,27,87], which is consistent with experimental observations through other technologies [7,168].…”

Section: Quantification Of Cellular Contractilitysupporting

confidence: 79%

“…More importantly, the traction forces underneath cells are determined unambiguously as each post is independent of surrounding posts [137,157], so it is widely used for figuring out coupling relations in force-dependent mechanotransduction processes including cell spreading, focal adhesions, cellular contractility and cell migration. The prominent advantage of microposts is that it can isolate and quantify cellular traction forces at individual cellmatrix contact sites [46,87,157,166], so micropost substrates possess excellent flexibility for different magnitude of traction forces from pico-to nano-Newton generated by various types of cells [26,118,120]. Moreover, it detects both direction and magnitude of traction forces at subcellular level so as to depict the exerted force distribution and analyze cellular mechanical responses [157].…”

Section: Advantages and Disadvantagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Afterwards, numerous experiments conducted on micropost arrays exhibited that traction forces around the center region are minute while they are larger obviously at the boundary of the cell [26,27,87]. Moreover, cells tend to contract toward physical center in order to achieve balance when residing on the bed of microposts; thus, the traction forces are centripetal [26,27,87], which is consistent with experimental observations through other technologies [7,168]. Recently, Cheng et al [27] developed high-density micropost arrays to map cell traction forces of isolated vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and their finding also was consistent with above results.…”

Section: Quantification Of Cellular Contractilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Generally, the measurement accuracy of traction force mainly depends on two factors: the aspect ratio and micropost density under the same optical measurement techniques [33,87,139]. On the one hand, microposts with high aspect ratio are easily bent and possess higher measurement sensitivity and wider applications in cells generating smaller traction force as highly flexible and extendable beams, whereas short microposts may subject to elastic elongation of posts or pulling up effects of underlying substrates [26]. On the other hand, since micropost arrays are composed of a series of discrete pillars, large inter-post spacing not only severely constrains cell shape regeneration…”

Section: Analysis Of Micropost Force Sensor Arraysmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because of above reasons, construction of micropost arrays with high aspect ratio and density has arouse extensive interests [102,118,136]. Various types of micropost substrates have been developed as passive force-measuring platform to measure traction forces within a static environment [26,27,87,129,175]. More than that, micropost arrays may combine with other techniques as force-applying platform to investigate cellular responses to externally applied forces [34,82,83,96,144,146,159].…”

Section: Analysis Of Micropost Force Sensor Arraysmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review of cellular mechanotransduction on micropost substrates

Geng

Wang

2015

Med Biol Eng Comput

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As physical entities, living cells can sense and respond to various stimulations within and outside the body through cellular mechanotransduction. Any deviation in cellular mechanotransduction will not only undermine the orchestrated regulation of mechanical responses, but also lead to the breakdown of their physiological function. Therefore, a quantitative study of cellular mechanotransduction needs to be conducted both in experiments and in computational simulations to investigate the underlying mechanisms of cellular mechanotransduction. In this review, we present an overview of the current knowledge and significant progress in cellular mechanotransduction via micropost substrates. In the aspect of experimental studies, we summarize significant experimental progress and place an emphasis on the coupled relationship among cellular spreading, focal adhesion and contractility as well as the influence of substrate properties on force-involved cellular behaviors. In the other aspect of computational investigations, we outline a coupled framework including the biochemically motivated stress fiber model and thermodynamically motivated adhesion model and present their predicted biomechanical responses and then compare predicted simulation results with experimental observations to further explore the mechanisms of cellular mechanotransduction. At last, we discuss the future perspectives both in experimental technologies and in computational models, as well as facing challenges in the area of cellular mechanotransduction.

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Section: Quantification Of Cellular Contractilitysupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Advantages and Disadvantagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Quantification Of Cellular Contractilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Analysis Of Micropost Force Sensor Arraysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Analysis Of Micropost Force Sensor Arraysmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review of cellular mechanotransduction on micropost substrates

Geng

Wang

2015

Med Biol Eng Comput

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Imaging and Analysis of Encapsulated Objects through Self‐Assembled Electron and Optically Transparent Graphene Oxide Membranes

Yulaev

Lipatov

et al. 2016

Adv Materials Inter

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We demonstrate a technique for facile encapsulation and adhesion of micro- and nano objects on arbitrary substrates, stencils, and micro structured surfaces by ultrathin graphene oxide membranes via a simple drop casting of graphene oxide solution. A self-assembled encapsulating membrane forms during the drying process at the liquid-air and liquid-solid interfaces and consists of a water-permeable quasi-2D network of overlapping graphene oxide flakes. Upon drying and interlocking between the flakes, the encapsulating coating around the object becomes mechanically robust, chemically protective, and yet highly transparent to electrons and photons in a wide energy range, enabling microscopic and spectroscopic access to encapsulated objects. The characteristic encapsulation scenarios were demonstrated on a set of representative inorganic and organic micro and nano-objects and microstructured surfaces. Different coating regimes can be achieved by controlling the pH of the supporting solution, and the hydrophobicity and morphology of interfaces. Several specific phenomena such as compression of encased objects by contracting membranes as well as hierarchical encapsulations were observed. Finally, electron as well as optical microscopy and analysis of encapsulated objects along with the membrane effect on the image contrast formation, and signal attenuation are discussed

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Oxidation stiffening of PDMS microposts

Sim

Taylor

Larsen

et al. 2015

Extreme Mechanics Letters

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This paper presents guidance for analyzing the stiffness changes of micropost arrays after oxidation. Numerous mechanobiology studies exploit micropost arrays to quantify cell-generated micropost displacements and traction forces. Cell adhesion requires surface functionalization typically facilitated by an oxidation step, which can form a glassy skin. We estimate the material properties of this skin, analytically calculate the stiffness of oxidized microposts and compare it with direct measurements. We find correction factors increase exponentially with decreasing micropost diameter. Ignoring this oxidation stiffening of microposts results in more than 200% underestimation in micropost stiffness as well as the cellular traction forces extracted from micropost deflections.

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Micropost array for force mapping of vascular smooth muscle cells

Cited by 4 publications

References 11 publications

Review of cellular mechanotransduction on micropost substrates

Review of cellular mechanotransduction on micropost substrates

Imaging and Analysis of Encapsulated Objects through Self‐Assembled Electron and Optically Transparent Graphene Oxide Membranes

Oxidation stiffening of PDMS microposts

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