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Cellular mechanosensing

Sharing the force

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Cells can sense their environment by applying and responding to mechanical forces, yet how these forces are transmitted through the cell's cytoskeleton is largely unknown. Now, a combination of experiments and computer simulations shows how forces applied to the cell cortex are synergistically shared by motor proteins and crosslinkers.

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Figure 1: Schematic of the micropipette-aspiration experiment6.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Andreas Bausch is at the Lehrstuhl für Zellbiophysik E27, Technische Universität München, 85748 Garching, Germany,

    Andreas R. Bausch

  2. Ulrich Schwarz is at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Heidelberg, Philosophenweg 19, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany,

    Ulrich S. Schwarz

Authors
  1. Andreas R. Bausch
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  2. Ulrich S. Schwarz
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Correspondence to Andreas R. Bausch or Ulrich S. Schwarz.

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Bausch, A., Schwarz, U. Sharing the force. Nature Mater 12, 948–949 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3791

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