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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Muscle Nerve. 2011 Sep 1;44(3):318–331. doi: 10.1002/mus.22094

Figure 8.

Figure 8

Mechanical contribution of the ECM to muscle bundle modulus. (A) Individual fibers display linear stress-strain behavior, whereas muscle bundles composed of these fibers and ECM display a nonlinear relationship. (B) Fiber groups do not contain ECM (see text), and the modulus value is comparable to that of single fibers. Fiber bundles do contain ECM and have a significantly higher modulus, suggesting that the addition of ECM is responsible for the increased modulus (data replotted from reference79). Asterisk indicates p<0.05 compared to fibers, dagger indicates p<0.05 compared to fiber groups.