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. 2017 Aug 24;113(7):1585–1598. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2017.07.027

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Substrate viscoelasticity induces cell coalescence. (A) Given here is a comparison of cell-free areas in confluent cultures of CL-S1, HeLa, NIH3T3, MDCK, and IEC6 cells grown on viscoelastic PDMS. (B) Given here is Western blot of whole cell lysates of CL-S1, HeLa, NIH3T3, MDCK, and IEC6 cell lines, immunoblotted for E- and N-cadherins. (C) Shown here is a graph of the development of cell-free area in confluent cultures of CL-S1 (black), HeLa (orange), NIH3T3 (blue), MDCK (red), and IEC6 (green) cells (n = 3–4), on VE PDMS. (C′) Given here is the extent of cell coalescence on VE PDMS in different cell lines at 12 h postsettling. Values correspond to 12 h endpoint in (C). (D) CL-S1 cells on VE, SE, and E PDMS substrata are shown under a wide-field microscope. Panels correspond to 0 h (left column), 6 h (middle column), and 12 h (right column) time points (n = 3–4). (E) Shown here is a graph of increase in cell-free area in CL-S1 monolayer over time on elastic (blue), soft elastic (red), and viscoelastic (black) PDMS substrata. The viscoelastic curve is from the same data as the CL-S1 cell coalescence data in (C). (E′) The extent of cell coalescence was significantly reduced on SE and E PDMS substrata compared to VE PDMS substrate at 12 h postsettling. (F and F′) Correlation of cell movement in the x direction (F) and y direction (F′) was calculated from PIV analysis of movies of CL-S1 and MDCK cells on VE, SE, and E PDMS substrata. ∗p < 0.05, ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗∗∗∗p < 0.0001; n.s., not significant; bars represent SE.