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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Mar 27.
Published in final edited form as: Biomaterials. 2017 Aug 17;145:23–32. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2017.08.033

Fig. 6. Cardiac fibroblast and MSC spread areas are dynamically tuned to PDMS stiffness.

Fig. 6

Representative images (a,c) and spread area quantification (b,d) of (top) cardiac fibroblasts and (bottom) MSCs on soft and stiff static substrates, as well as on a soft-to-stiff dynamic substrate on day 2 (stiffening performed on day 1). Stiff substrates were used as a positive control as photocrosslinking was applied before cell seeding and static soft substrates did not receive light exposure. The moduli for the Soft and Stiff substrates were ~3 and ~37 kPa, respectively. The modulus of Soft-to-Stiff substrate was changed from ~3 to 37 kPa after stiffening. Thus, the final moduli of the Soft, Soft-to-Stiff and Stiff substrates were ~3, ~37 and ~37 kPa, respectively. Cardiac fibroblasts were stained with vimentin (red), nuclei (blue); MSCs were stained with F-actin (red), nuclei (blue). n > 40 cells per group. ***: p < 0.001, n.s.: not significant. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)