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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Semin Cancer Biol. 2012 May 18;22(5-6):385–395. doi: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2012.05.002

Figure 12.

Figure 12

Schematic representation of proposed Cellular Assisted Enzyme MechanoKinetic (CAEMK) mechanism. Experimental data indicates that tension dramatically inhibits the enzymatic degradation of matrix collagen (Enzyme MechanoKinetic or EMK response, Fig. 9) [44]. However since cells can apply significant tensile traction forces to the α-chains, our SMD model (Fig. 11) indicates that a cell can separate the α-chain from the other α-chains (microunfolding) to deform (open) the hinge region for MMP access and cleavage.