Fig. 6.

Inhibiting cellular MMP production eliminated the softening of collagen matrices of fibroblasts with an initial density of 0.5 M cells/mL at T=32 h. MMP-production of fibroblasts was inhibited using GM6001 treatment. a Whereas relative modulus of matrices with wild type cells is significantly lower than the one of the control matrices with collagen only (ie. softer; $\ast \ast Pr<0.01$, paired t-test, Bonferroni correction, n=8), the relative modulus of matrices with GM6001-treated cells has an insignificant difference from the one of the control (ie. equally stiff; n.s. Pr > 0.50, paired t-test, Bonferroni correction, n=8). b Relative loss tangent of matrices with GM6001-treated and wild type cells insignificantly varies from the ones of control matrices (n.s. $Pr>0.50$, paired t-test, Bonferroni correction, n=5 for the treated, n=8 for wild type)