Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: Biomaterials. 2014 Mar 12;35(19):5056–5064. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2014.02.020

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

Increased lateral convergence of the collagen bands and reinforcement of the collagen structure caused by differentiated myofibroblasts correlated with significant microtissue stiffening. TGF-β1 treatment caused significant increase in cross-sectional area (A, Top view and Side view; C), micropillar deflection (A, Side view), α-SMA stress fiber thickness and density (A,α-SMA), contraction force (B), and contraction stress (D) of the microtissues at both day 1 and day 3 as compared to serum-only treatment. From day 1 to day 3, the lateral convergence of the collagen bands in the serum-only condition (A, Serum-Collagen) correlated with the increase in elastic modulus (E, Serum). The formation of a dense collagen core structure due to increased lateral convergence of the collagen bands and the reinforcement of this structure by differentiated myofibroblasts (A, TGFβ1-Collagen) correlated with significant tissue stiffening as compared to serum-only condition (E, TGF-β1). Triton-X treatment caused significant reduction in the contraction force and stress but almost no change in the elastic modulus (B-E). Collagen and α-SMA images are 3D views reconstructed from confocal stacks. Sample size for each condition: n > 9. All data are presented as Mean ± S.D.