Skip to main content

Some NLM-NCBI services and products are experiencing heavy traffic, which may affect performance and availability. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience. For assistance, please contact our Help Desk at info@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

Journal of the Royal Society Interface logoLink to Journal of the Royal Society Interface
. 2004 Nov 22;1(1):91–97. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2004.0010

Linearity and time-scale invariance of the creep function in living cells.

G Lenormand 1, E Millet 1, B Fabry 1, J P Butler 1, J J Fredberg 1
PMCID: PMC1618933  PMID: 16849155

Abstract

We report here the creep function measured in three cell types, after a variety of interventions, and over three time decades (from 3 ms to 3.2 s). In each case the response conformed to a power law, implying that no distinct molecular relaxation times or time constants could characterize the response. These results add to a growing body of evidence that stands in contrast to widely used viscoelastic models featuring at most a few time constants. We show instead that the ability of the matrix to deform is time-scale invariant and characterized by only one parameter: the power law exponent that controls the transition between solid-like and liquid-like behaviour. Moreover, we validate linearity by comparison of measurements in the time and frequency domains.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (607.0 KB).


Articles from Journal of the Royal Society Interface are provided here courtesy of The Royal Society

RESOURCES