Extended Data Fig. 9: Tension anisotropy promotes fibroblast activation levels even in the presence of matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors.
To inhibit the degradation of collagen fibres by fibroblasts, we treated fibroblasts with GM6001, a well-known inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). Similar to the control cells in Fig. 5, fibroblasts treated with the MMP inhibitor exhibited higher activation levels in the anisotropic region compared to the isotropic region. Data represents the intensity of F-actin per cell. The height of the bars and the error bars indicate the mean and the standard error, respectively (n = 40 images). Statistical analysis was performed using the two-sided unpaired Student’s t-test.
