Figure 1.

Vascular cells exhibit asymmetric morphogenesis on micropatterned geometries. (a) Schematic and staining images are shown, illustrating the platform for asymmetric vascular cell alignment and morphogenesis study with micropatterned ring-shaped vascular tissues (C166-GFP) on a mechanical-force sensing PAA hydrogel substrate. Scale bar, 100 μm. (b) The angle of cell alignment (green line) is defined as either positive or negative, based on the deviation from the tangent direction (red dash line tangent to the red circle). (c) A histogram of the mean angles of vascular cells and the definition of asymmetric alignment index based on the pattern in (b) is shown. (d) The alignment angle is illustrated as either green (positive angle) or red (negative angle) arrows. Note that the cell nuclei were stained with Hoechst 33342 (white) for angle quantification. Scale bar, 100 μm. (e) A representative color-coded force vector map in a micropatterned vascular sheet is shown. Scale bar, 50 μm. (f) Consistent trends between radial asymmetric alignments and traction force magnitude and (g) between cell alignment angles and cell-cell force magnitude at different radial positions on the ring (n = 35) are shown. Error bars represent ± standard errors. (h) A strong dependence of radial asymmetric cell alignments on traction force magnitude is shown. (i) A linear correlation of mean alignment angle with cell-cell force magnitude (n = 35) is shown.