The physical properties of the extracellular matrix such as stiffness, viscoelasticity, fiber diameter, and chemical composition are well known as important modulators of cell behavior in vivo. Therefore, over the past decade, there has been a major emphasis on characterizing the properties of the in vivo ECM and also engineered matrices in vitro. In this context, properties such…
Type I collagen is a fibrous protein and the largest constituent of the ECM by mass. Collagen fibers are aligned across several millimeters to centimeters within load-bearing tissues, like the musculoskeletal tissue, cardiac tissue, and the cornea. Millimeter scale regions of fiber alignment are also observed in the tumor stroma and fibrotictissue. At the cell scale,…
Link to BioRxiv paper The extracellular matrix in vivo is composed of fibers arranged with varying degrees of alignment in different directions. The extent of alignment (anisotropy) and the directionality of fibers are an indicator of breast cancer metastasis, influence T-cell motility, and guide endothelial cell alignment. Similar to the existence of chemical gradients and…
BMES 2019 saw a number of talks being presented on the topic of controlling extracellular matrix architecture and understanding how cells respond to physical cues from their in ECM. My focus was primarily on talks pertaining to the tumor microenvironment or other tissues which show anisotropy in ECM fiber alignment such as cardiac tissue. Recently,…