Extended Data Fig. 8: Tension anisotropy promotes fibroblast activation level.
(a) Cell-induced contraction of a cruciform tissue, anchored at the ends of its four arms (Extended Data Figure 7), caused cells in the center of the specimen to experience equibiaxial isotropic tension, and cells in the arms to experience anisotropic (polarized) tension (Fig. 5a). (b-c) Cells subjected to anisotropic stress fields showed higher levels of F-actin and \({\rm{\alpha }}\)-smooth muscle actin (\({\rm{\alpha }}\)-SMA), indicating that anisotropic stress fields significantly increased activation of fibroblasts into myofibroblasts. Data in panels B and C represents the intensity of F-actin and \({\rm{\alpha }}\)-SMA per cell. The height of the bars and the error bars indicate the mean and the standard error, respectively (n = 9 images in (B) and (C)). Statistical analysis was performed using the two-sided unpaired Student’s t-test.
