Life Sciences Commons^™

Influence Of Mechanical Cues And The Extracellular Matrix On Cell Migration Patterns And The Proliferation Rates Of Cells, Tara Shane Alger

Wayne State University Theses

The mechanical environment of a cell and its tissue can impact multiple biological processes including development, wound healing, and metastasis. Specific cellular behaviors influenced by the mechanical microenvironment include differentiation, morphology, apoptosis, migration, and proliferation. In this thesis I have focused specifically on the effect of environmental stiffness and applied mechanical forces on cellular migration and proliferation, respectively. Using two different applications, both tailored to evaluate the mechanical forces alone on cellular behavior, I attempted to simulate the mechanical composition of the in vivo tissue microenvironments in vitro using polyacrylamide hydrogels. To test whether cells maintain a mechanical memory for …