Fig. 1.

a Cell–matrix binding. Once an ECM fiber of the extracellular matrix comes within a predefined binding range, a connection between the cell nucleus and defined binding spots on the ECM fibers can be formed through a stress fiber. b Focal adhesion model. A focal adhesion can consist of up to 20 integrins which bind and unbind individually according to a constant on-rate $k_{\mathit{on}}$ ($0.1s^{-1}$, adjusted from Elosegui-Artola et al. (2016)) and a force–dependent off-rate $k_{\mathrm{off}}(F)$. c Average integrin lifetime. Experimental studies have shown that single integrins show a catch-slip bond behavior (Kong et al. 2009; Weng et al. 2016), i.e., the maximal average lifetime is assumed for tensile binding forces greater than zero