Figure 4

Tendon healing and dynamic loading affect cell-generated stress transmission through the surrounding ECM. (a) Cell-generated stress transmission through the surrounding ECM decayed more rapidly in (b) healing tendon and in tendons subjected to high magnitude dynamic loading, as evidenced by (c) the decreased exponent of displacement decay η. (d) When scaling the ECM stress transmission decay rate by tissue cellularity, the effective ECM stress transmission decay rate was more similar between groups. U indicates displacment (μm) from the cell perimeter. “Quasi” indicates quasi-static loading, “low/1k” indicates low magnitude loading for 1000 cycles, and “high/1k” indicates high magnitude loading for 1000 cycles.