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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: Comput Methods Biomech Biomed Engin. 2012 Apr 19;16(7):790–801. doi: 10.1080/10255842.2012.662678

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Microvessel cultures provided an in vitro model of angiogenesis used for validating the computational model. Collagen gels serving as the ECM were subjected to two different boundary conditions. (A) Round, free-floating culture at day 0. (B) After 6 days, free-floating gels were uniformly contracted by cellular traction forces. Scale bar = 5 mm. (C) Rectangular collagen gel with the long axis constrained at day 0. (D) After 6 days, the fixed-edge constructs contracted along the short axis, with the most contraction found at the center of the gel (furthest point away from the boundary conditions). Microvessels and collagen fibers within these constructs were found predominately orientated along the constrained axis, shown as a white dashed line. Scale bar = 5 mm. (E) A 10X light micrograph displaying initial microvessel fragments within a free-floating collagen gel at day 0. (F) Representative growth profile seen within a free-floating vascularized construct after 6 days of culture. Scale bar = 200 μm.