Abstract
Proliferation and motility of cells may be closely related to cell shape and intracellular tension developed with actinmyosin contractile proteins, but details are not clear at this stage. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the intercellular tension by the traction force microscopy. We analyzed traction force of vascular smooth muscle cells in which existence of two phenotypes, "contractile type" which is a spindle shape and high contractile ability and "synthetic type" which is irregularly spread shape and low contractile ability are reported. Fluorescent beads were embedded in a polyacrylamide gel whose elastic modulus can be easily adjusted. After coating the adhesive protein on the gel substrate and seeding the cells, the cell shape was visualized by fluorescent staining of the cell membrane. Then, the displacement distribution of the beads on the surface of the gel substrate by the cellular tension was obtained by the image correlation method, and the cell tension distribution was measured from the obtained displacement distribution and the elastic properties of the gel substrate obtained by the atomic force microscope. We found a significant correlation between cell area and intercellular tension and a tendency that there was no significant difference in intercellular tension as the cell shape changed. Furthermore, the relationship between cell shape and intercellular tension was discussed.
