As cells bump into each other, forces cause them to move and shake, or even sometimes rupture.
“Cells are constantly generating forces and responding to them. They are being pulled on by their environment,” said Jonathan Winkelman, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago. Winkelman works in the lab of Margaret Gardel, professor in the Department of Physics and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.
Unlike a rubber band that breaks when you stretch it too much, an overstretched cell initiates a response to repair itself. This phenomenon has been observed using microscopy, but the question of how the repair and adaptation process initiates inside the cells has remained unanswered until now.
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