Orientation Response of Stress Fibers in Cultured Cells under Biaxial Cyclic Stretch: Hypothesis and Theoretical Prediction

Summary

We proposed a hypothesis that a stress fiber aligns so as to minimize the summation of its length change during the deformation under cyclic stretch, and that there is a limit in the sensitivity of cellular response to the mechanical stimulus. This hypothesis explained a strain range dependence of the orientation of stress fibers in cultured cells under uniaxial cyclic stretch with a constant strain range. A numerical simulation in the case of a small strain range less than 10% resulted in a large distribution of the orientation. It explained the experimental evidence in the literature that cultured cells subjected to a small range of cyclic stretch tended to orient in the direction perpendicular to the stretch direction. The hypothesis also predicted that stress fibers oriented in the direction perpendicular to the stretch when there was a constraint of deformation in its direction.