@article{ed79476b2a294a5f96d5513da8480926,
title = "Three-dimensional force microscopy of cells in biopolymer networks",
abstract = "We describe a technique for the quantitative measurement of cell-generated forces in highly nonlinear three-dimensional biopolymer networks that mimic the physiological situation of living cells. We computed forces of MDA-MB-231 breast carcinoma cells from the measured network deformations around the cells using a finite-element approach based on a constitutive equation that captures the complex mechanical properties of diverse biopolymers such as collagen gels, fibrin gels and Matrigel. Our measurements show that breast carcinoma cells cultured in collagen gels generated nearly constant forces regardless of the collagen concentration and matrix stiffness. Furthermore, time-lapse force measurements showed that these cells migrated in a gliding motion with alternating phases of high and low contractility, elongation, migratory speed and persistence.",
author = "Julian Steinwachs and Claus Metzner and Kai Skodzek and Nadine Lang and Ingo Thievessen and Christoph Mark and Stefan M{\"u}nster and Aifantis, {Katerina E.} and Ben Fabry",
note = "Funding Information: We thank J.P. Butler (Harvard University) for helpful discussions and for developing a method to locate the force epicenter from a 3D vector field, and we thank P. Strissel (University Clinics Erlangen) for help with Matrigel experiments. We acknowledge E. Wagena (Radboud University Nijmegen) for generating dual-color HT1080 fibrosarcoma cells, which were a gift from K. Wolf (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands). This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) Research Training Group 1962 “Dynamic Interactions at Biological Membranes: From Single Molecules to Tissue,” the US National Institutes of Health (NIH-HL65960) and the Emerging Fields Initiative of the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.",
year = "2016",
month = feb,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1038/nmeth.3685",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "13",
pages = "171--176",
journal = "Nature Methods",
issn = "1549-1277",
publisher = "Public Library of Science",
number = "2",
}