Figure 3
Tumor-associated fibroblasts are mechanosensitive.
(A) Snapshot of an EGFP-palladin cell (green) on an elastic gel (in the 10–30 kPa stiffness range) embedded with fluorescent beads (red). Scale bar: 10 μm. (B) Snapshot of the traction stress map for the stresses generated by the same cell. Colors correspond to the stress values as indicated by the color scale. The contour of the cell is superimposed in black. (C) A map of the local traction force vectors superimposed on the cell contour. (D) Traction force per unit area for WT and EGFP-palladin cells on gels of different stiffness ranges. (WT cells: grey: p < 0.001 between soft and intermediate; p < 0.01 between intermediate and stiff; Wilcoxon ranksum test) (EGFP-palladin cells: black: p < 0.0001 between soft and intermediate; p < 0.0001 between intermediate and stiff; Wilcoxon ranksum test). Number of cells: N > 20 from ~5 independent experiments for each condition (corresponding to a total of ~120 cells). Rhodamine-phalloidin staining of WT cell to visualize f-actin on (E) a soft (2 kPa) gel and (F) a stiffer (25 kPa) gel. Scale bars: 10 μm.
