Figure 4
From: Mechanical activities of self-beating cardiomyocyte aggregates under mechanical compression
The mechanical response of a pair of cardiac spheroids (CSs) to increasing compression. (a) Temporal changes in the vertical position of the lower surface, z1 (diagonal broken line), and the vertical position of the upper surface, z2 (green line). (b) Temporal changes in the projected areas of the CSs, SA (blue line) and SB (red line), observed by optical microscopy. (c) Temporal change in the potential energy of the probe, U = kzz22/2 (green line). (d) Temporal changes in the normalized heights of the CSs, HA = SA0/SA (blue line) and HB = SB0/SB (red line), where SA0 and SB0 are the projected areas of the CSs under no compression. The light blue bands in (c) and (d) represent the periods of regular synchronous beating. Experimental conditions: DA = 322 μm (Ncell-A ~ 4000), DB = 320 μm (Ncell-B ~ 4000), kz = 3.4 N/m, and Vz = 2 μm/s.
