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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Nov 20.
Published in final edited form as: J Theor Biol. 2011 Jan 15;274(1):109–119. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.01.011

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Our computational model for representing a simplified actin filament network of an approximately circular cell under mechanical stimulation. (a) The node distribution of the network of 100 arbitrary unit radius with filaments removed. 16 nodes are assigned to specific locations on the perimeter (filled circles) and can act as fixed connections (mimicking focal adhesions). 30 interior nodes (open circles) are placed randomly and function as links between filaments (mimicking linking proteins such as filamin). (b) 138 filament network with both nodes and filaments represented. Linear fibers are formed by randomly selecting two nodes for each fiber; the nodes locate the ends of a fiber and define its length and orientation. Arrows denote which perimeter nodes will be stretched and the direction of stretch. (c) Configuration after stretching the arrowed perimeter nodes by 10% of their X-axis position in the direction of the arrows and after node network equilibrium has been achieved. The model was considered in equilibrium when the summation of the absolute magnitude of all the nodal forces was less than a prescribed tolerance.