Figure 4.

Means and SDs of estimated dissociation rates, k_off, as a function of uniaxial macroscopic strain ɛ_m (bottom x axis) in unstretched samples (solid circle) and at ɛ_m of 0.4 and 0.8 (squares) measured on walls that had a direction parallel to macroscopic strain. At e_m = 0.4, k_off was also measured along walls that were perpendicular to the macroscopic strain (cross). Inset shows a region of a nonlinear elastic network at e_m = 0.4 that was used to predict the average microscopic strain ɛ_μ (top horizontal axis) on the walls parallel to macroscopic strain. The shades (colors in the Supporting Material) represent local microscopic strain darker (red) denoting higher strains. Note the large variability among horizontal segments. The SD of ɛ_μ is plotted as horizontal error bars. The solid line shows the linear regression. The mean and SD of k_off measured in pure elastin hydrogel is also shown (triangle).