Fig. 5: Regulation of cellular behavior through reverse viscoelastic changes.

a Representative images of Hey cells cultured on ALYDS gels, subjected to 20 mW/cm² light exposure for 0.5 h and rested for 0 h, 1 h, 2 h, and 4 h. Actin and nuclei are visualized as red and blue, respectively. Scale bar: 25 μm. Analysis of the spreading area b and circularity c of Hey cells on 2 kPa-viscoelastic substrates from a. ****P < 0.0001; **P = 0.0082, ***P = 0.00058. n = 124, 69, 145, 135, 150 cells from left to fight respectively. d Analysis of Hey cells’ YAP nuc/cyt ratio on 2 kPa-ALYDS hydrogels subjected to 20 mW/cm² light exposure for 0.5 h and rested for varying durations (0 h, 2 h, and 4 h). ns P > 0.05, ****P < 0.0001, *P = 0.03099; n = 71, 63, 70, 89 cells respectively. The solid lines (black) in the scatter plots indicate median values. All studies included three independent hydrogels for each group. All statistical analysis was conducted using Kruskal–Wallis with Dunn’s multiple comparisons test.