Figure 8.

(a) Relative change in the density of fiber segments contained in the intercellular medium and (b) mean change in the orientation of the fibers contained in the intercellular medium (gray sector at the top panel) as a result of 25% cell contraction. 0° is defined as the horizontal line pointing toward the center of the neighboring cell; accordingly, negative change indicates realignment of the fibers to point toward the center of the neighboring cell (i.e., to be aligned more horizontally).