Fig. 3: The effect of the strain magnitude on the mechanical response of cell pairs subjected to high strain rates.

a Temporal evolution of stress (average of all curves for each condition \(\pm\)s.e) over time for cell pairs stretched at different rates to reach 125% strain. To make the comparison easier to visualize, we aligned the initiation of the holding phase to t = 0 s. b Temporal evolution of stress for cell pairs stretched at a strain rate of 50%s⁻¹ to reach various strain magnitudes. c B vs C values calculated from fitting the temporal evolution of stress over time in response to different strain magnitudes applied at 50%s⁻¹ are plotted and clustered on a semi logarithmic scale. Solid triangles and hollow circles represent tensioned and relaxed responses, respectively. d The probability of tensioning versus the strain magnitude and strain rate. The stars indicate the probability of tensioning calculated from the experimental results. e Temporal evolution of the stress in the cell pair in response to stretch-hold-stretch (N = 14), and a single stretch to 100% strain (N = 12). In the stretch-hold-stretch experiments, the cell pairs were stretched to 50% at 25%s⁻¹ strain rate. After 5 min of hold, the cell pairs were stretched at 25%s⁻¹ to reach a total of 100% strain. f Probability of tensioning for stretch-hold-stretch experiments and a single stretch to 100% strain. The inset shows the applied strain over time for a stretch-hold-stretch experiment and a single stretch to 100% strain.