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Effect of Substrate Rigidity on the Growth of Nascent Adhesion Sites

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Advances in Cell Mechanics

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Abstract

Mechanical stiffness of bio-adhesive substrates is one of the major regulators of the cell adhesion and migration. In this contribution, we propose a theoretical model for the spontaneous growth of focal adhesion sites on compliant elastic substrates at the early stages of cellular adhesion. Using a purely thermodynamic approach, we demonstrate that the rate of membrane-substrate association decreases with increasing the compliance of the substrate. This can be considered as a reason for smaller spread area of the focal adhesion points after the stabilization of adhesion on compliant substrates, as reported by experiments. We also show that the extent to which the compliance of the substrate modulates the growth rate of adhesion site depends on the areal density of cell-adhesive ligands on the substrate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maine, 5711 Boardman Hall, Room 206, Orono, ME, 04469-5711, USA

    Alireza S. Sarvestani

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  1. Alireza S. Sarvestani
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Correspondence to Alireza S. Sarvestani .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of California at Berkeley, USA

    Shaofan Li

  2. Centre for Mechanics, Smart Structures and Microsystems, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa

    Bohua Sun

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© 2011 Higher Education Press, Beijing and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Sarvestani, A.S. (2011). Effect of Substrate Rigidity on the Growth of Nascent Adhesion Sites. In: Li, S., Sun, B. (eds) Advances in Cell Mechanics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17590-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17590-9_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-17589-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-17590-9

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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