Abstract
Hepatic stellate cells (HSC) are mechanosensitive cells able to differentiate in vivo into myofibroblasts in stiff environments. Liver fibrosis is a pathological context condition characterized by increasing liver stiffness, and myofibroblastic differentiation, but the balance between the contribution of both the stiffness and the viscosity of the cellular matrix to this phenomenon remains to be determined. In order to evaluate the influence of substrate viscosity on HSC phenotype we developed a custom system of acrylamide gels with varying viscoelastic properties. Plating primary murine HSC on such acrylamide gels of varying stiffness, viscosity and biological functionalization reveals how the cellular phenotype is induced by each of these parameters and their respective influence on HSC function. Creation of substrates in which both the magnitude of elastic modulus and its rate of relaxation can be tuned can help define the time scales over which cellular mechanosensing occurs.
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