Strain-Induced Alignment in Collagen Gels

摘要: Collagen is the most abundant extracellular-network-forming protein in animal biology and important both natural artificial tissues, where it serves as a material of great mechanical versatility. This versatility arises from its almost unique ability to remodel under applied loads into anisotropic inhomogeneous structures. To explore origins this property, we develop set analysis tools novel experimental setup that probes response fibrous networks geometry mimics typical deformation profile imposed by cells vivo. We observe strong fiber alignment densification function strain for uncrosslinked crosslinked collagenous networks. found be irreversibly imprinted collagen networks, suggesting simple mechanism tissue organization at microscale. However, display similar same geometrical properties gels, but with full reversibility. Plasticity therefore not required align fibers. On contrary, our data show effect part fundamental non-linear biological