FIG. 12.

In a migrating sheet of rat pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells, the local stress-tensor is depicted by blue ellipses and the local migration velocity is depicted by red arrows. The stress field is disordered but with strong local correlations. Within that stress landscape, local cellular migrations tend to follow local orientations of maximal principal stress. Equivalently, cells migrate in a direction that minimizes intercellular shear stress (plithotaxis). Inset: For the highest quintile of in-plane shear stress, the angle, ϕ, between the major axis of the principal stress ellipse and the direction of the cellular migration becomes well aligned.⁸ See text. Reproduced with permission from Tambe et al., Nat. Mater. 10(6), 469–475 (2011). Copyright 2011 Springer Nature.