Fig. 1.

(a) Immunofluorescence images showing actin distributions within U2OS cells subjected to a uniaxial cyclic strain with a stretch amplitude at frequencies f = 0.01 and 1 Hz for around 12 hours. Reproduced from (14). Scale bar 25 μm. (b) Sketch showing a single cell adhered to a substrate subjected to a biaxial cyclic strain in the plane. The cell exchanges high energy nutrients with the nutrient bath. A morphological microstate is defined by the mapping of material points on the cell membrane with material points on the substrate. (c) The 2D approximation of the cells. The components of the cell that are modeled explicitly include an elastic nucleus and cytoplasm as well as the contractile SFs in their polymerized state along with the the unbound components that are free to diffuse within the cytoplasm. (d) The elliptical approximation of the cell as a spatially uniform ellipse on the cyclically loaded substrate. The principal axes 2a₁ and 2a₂, respectively, of the ellipse are labeled along with the definition of the orientation θ of the cell. (e) Sketches to illustrate the orientation δ of an SF relative to the x₁ imposed cyclic strain direction and the orientation ϕ of the SF relative to the major axis of the ellipse.