Figure 2 | Scientific Reports

Figure 2

From: Three-Dimensional Characterization of Mechanical Interactions between Endothelial Cells and Extracellular Matrix during Angiogenic Sprouting

Figure 2

3D rendering of the ECM interacting with filopodia (blue) of a sprout tip (whose nucleus was indicated in red).

Four time points (T3-T6) were involved, covering the period of one hour. The profile of the sprout tip was extracted with Imaris and reconstructed with MATLAB. The ECM shown here is a 10 μm-thick cylindrical layer wrapping the sprout tip. The outside diameter of the layer is 70 μm, whereas the length is 250 μm. The cylinder was further separated into two parts to fully expose the structure of the filopodia. The outline of the undeformed ECM is shown with black lines. The deformation that appeared before the start of this 1-hour investigation (i.e., prior to the time point T3) is not reflected in these images. The significant deformations reflecting the pulling and pushing behavior of filopodia were marked with arrows. The actual levels of the deformation (shown with colorbar) were multiplied by a factor of 15 during image generation to allow better visualization. unit: μm.

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