Role of Mechanical Environment on the Evolution of Tissue Microstructure: Meso-scale Cell-Extracellular Matrix Interactions

机械环境对组织微观结构演变的作用：细胞-细胞外基质相互作用摘要本研究的目的是研究局部机械环境对胶原组织中细胞结构和几何形状以及胶原网络的影响。提出了一种量化局部机械环境的技术，该技术利用金纳米棒散射的光来创建用于光学测量的模式标记。该方法可产生小尺度的现场数据，可用于实际三维材料的测量。通过衍生化纳米棒来针对特定的分子成分和跟踪特定的事件，有可能扩展这种方法。组织结构的三个方面——细胞取向、胶原排列和多细胞空间组织——将被表征并与测量的局部机械环境相关联。作为更广泛的影响，人文学科的学生将扮演参与者-观察者的角色：发表关于科学如何完成的评论，解释科学或想象未来的文章，以及基于科学的艺术作品。

Role of Mechanical Environment on the Evolution of Tissue Microstructure: Meso-scale Cell-Extracellular Matrix InteractionsAbstractThe goal of this work is to investigate the effects of local mechanical environment on the architecture and geometry of cells and the collagen networks in collagenous tissue. A technique to quantify local mechanical environments is proposed which uses light scattered from gold nanorods to create a pattern marker for optical measurements. This method will generating small scale field data and can be used in for measurements in realistic three-dimensional materials. The potential exists to extend this method by derivatizing the nanorods to target specific molecular components and track specific events. Three aspects of tissue architecture - cell orientation, collagen alignment and multi-cell spatial organization - will be characterized and correlated to the measured local mechanical environment. As a broader impact, students from humanist fields will function as participant-observers: producing commentaries on how science is done, articles explaining science or imagining the future, and art work based on the science.