Theoretical Prediction of Stress Fiber Orientation in Cultured Cells under Uniaxial Cyclic Stretch

Abstract

We proposed a hypothesis to explain the orientation of stress fibers in cultured cells on a silicone membrane under uniaxial cyclic deformation. The hypothesis states that a stress fiber aligns in the direction in which the sum of the length change in the stress fiber under a cyclic deformation is minimal, and that a cell has a limit in the sensitivity to the mechanical stimulus. The length change was focused in all of the process of deformation, while it was focused only at the unstretched and maximally stretched states in the previous hypotheses in the literature. Numerical simulation results described the relationship between the range of uniaxial stretch and the angle of a stress fiber well. It also showed that the limit of sensitivity to the mechanical stimulus predicted a large width of the distribution of fiber angles under a several percent of strain ranges of uniaxial cyclic stretch.