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Mechanical plasticity of cells

Nature Materials volume 15, pages 1090–1094 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Under mechanical loading, most living cells show a viscoelastic deformation that follows a power law in time1. After removal of the mechanical load, the cell shape recovers only incompletely to its original undeformed configuration. Here, we show that incomplete shape recovery is due to an additive plastic deformation that displays the same power-law dynamics as the fully reversible viscoelastic deformation response. Moreover, the plastic deformation is a constant fraction of the total cell deformation and originates from bond ruptures within the cytoskeleton. A simple extension of the prevailing viscoelastic power-law response theory with a plastic element correctly predicts the cell behaviour under cyclic loading. Our findings show that plastic energy dissipation during cell deformation is tightly linked to elastic cytoskeletal stresses, which suggests the existence of an adaptive mechanism that protects the cell against mechanical damage.

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Figure 1: Cell shape recovery after force application is incomplete.
Figure 2: Superposition of viscoelastic and plastic power-law responses.
Figure 3: Timescale invariance and force dependency.
Figure 4: Deformation map of the actin network.
Figure 5: Dependence of plasticity on actin fibre orientation and stability.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the European Research Council Starting Grant MINATRAN 211166. We thank A. Mainka for help with cell culture and K. Kroy and M. Gralka for valuable discussions.

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Author notes

  1. Navid Bonakdar and Richard Gerum: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany

    Navid Bonakdar, Richard Gerum, Michael Kuhn, Marina Spörrer, Anna Lippert, Werner Schneider & Ben Fabry

  2. Max-Planck Institute for the Science of Light, 91058 Erlangen, Germany

    Navid Bonakdar

  3. Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA

    Katerina E. Aifantis

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  1. Navid Bonakdar
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Contributions

N.B., M.K., M.S. and A.L. performed experiments, N.B. and W.S. designed the rotation stage, N.B., K.E.A. and B.F. developed the model, N.B., R.G. and B.F. analysed the data, and N.B., R.G., K.E.A. and B.F. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Navid Bonakdar.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Bonakdar, N., Gerum, R., Kuhn, M. et al. Mechanical plasticity of cells. Nature Mater 15, 1090–1094 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4689

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