Traction force microscopy on soft elastic substrates: a guide to recent computational advances
arXiv:1506.02394 · doi:10.1016/j.bbamcr.2015.05.028
Abstract
The measurement of cellular traction forces on soft elastic substrates has become a standard tool for many labs working on mechanobiology. Here we review the basic principles and different variants of this approach. In general, the extraction of the substrate displacement field from image data and the reconstruction procedure for the forces are closely linked to each other and limited by the presence of experimental noise. We discuss different strategies to reconstruct cellular forces as they follow from the foundations of elasticity theory, including two- versus three-dimensional, inverse versus direct and linear versus non-linear approaches. We also discuss how biophysical models can improve force reconstruction and comment on practical issues like substrate preparation, image processing and the availability of software for traction force microscopy.
Revtex, 29 pages, 3 PDF figures, 2 tables. BBA - Molecular Cell Research, online since 27 May 2015, special issue on mechanobiology
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- Non-regularised Inverse Finite Element Analysis for 3D Traction Force Microscopy
- A Bayesian traction force microscopy method with automated denoising in a user-friendly software package