Fig. 1.

Flow chart showing the synthesis of experiments and modeling. In this study, results from previous experiments on vascular smooth muscle cells were used to model cytoskeletal (CSK) remodeling in response to cyclic stretching. Values of focal adhesion (FA) associated vinculin area obtained from immunostaining and confocal microscopy were used as parameters in a mixture model of CSK remodeling. The model was then fitted with indentation force-depth data obtained from AFM measurements to predict time-dependent CSK remodeling in response to cyclic stretching. Note that there are but a few basic assumptions in the general constrained mixture model (e.g., that energy stored in individual constituents are additive and based on 1-D relations), but many illustrative assumptions (e.g., particular stress-strain relations, distributions, pre-stretches, etc. for F-actin) are needed to fit data. We offer illustrative assumptions based on the best available data, but emphasize that the theory reveals the need for significantly more data.