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Fig. 2. | BMC Biology

Fig. 2.

From: Mechanotransduction: use the force(s)

Fig. 2.

Acto-myosin stress fibers are key mechanical regulators in cell-matrix mechanosensing. a Sketch of a cell adhering to a substrate of elasticity E. Actomyosin stress fibers (magnified in the inset zoom) are connected via focal adhesions and extracellular matrix proteins to the micro-environment and generate contractile forces that enable the cell to sense the mechanical properties of the substrate. The cytoskeleton is also connected to the nuclear lamina, thus providing a direct mechanical route to gene regulation. Adapted from [67] with permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry. b Non-monotonic dependence of stress fiber structure quantified by an order parameter S of hMSCs grown on substrates of different elasticity E can be used as early morphological marker for mechano-guided differentiation. Scale bar is 50 μm. Adapted from [70] with permission from the Nature Publishing Group

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