Introduction Tissues can be soft like brain, bone marrow, and fat, which bear little mechanical
stress, or stiff like muscle, cartilage, and bone, which sustain high levels of stress. …

Cellular organization within a multicellular organism requires that a cell assess its relative
location, taking in multiple cues from its microenvironment. Given that the extracellular matrix (…

Tissue cells lack the ability to see or hear but have evolved mechanisms to feel into their
surroundings and sense a collective stiffness. A cell can even sense the effective stiffness of …

Tissue microenvironments are characterized not only in terms of chemical composition but
also by collective properties such as stiffness, which influences the contractility of a cell, its …

Self-renewal and differentiation of stem cells depend on asymmetric division and polarized
motility processes that in other cell types are modulated by nonmuscle myosin-II (MII) forces …

Scarring is a long-lasting problem in higher animals, and reductionist approaches could aid
in developing treatments. Here, we show that copolymerization of collagen I with …

Matrix stiffness that is sensed by a cell or measured by a purely physical probe reflects the
intrinsic elasticity of the matrix and also how thick or thin the matrix is. Here, mesenchymal …

The cell nucleus is constantly subjected to externally applied forces. During metazoan
evolution, the nucleus has been optimized to allow physical deformability while protecting the …

… Amnon Buxboim … Amnon Buxboim and Dennis E. Discher are at the University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA., … Amnon Buxboim …

Adult stem cells and progenitors are of great interest for their clinical application as well as
their potential to reveal deep sensitivities to microenvironmental factors. The bone marrow is …