How the cell goes about its routine mechanical business of stretching, contracting, and remodelling has implications for understanding excessive airway narrowing in asthma, cell invasion in cancer and vessel constriction in vascular disease. Surprisingly, the cell is an intermediate form of matter, neither solid nor fluid but retaining features of both - that responds to stretch by fluidizing, much as do common pastes, foams, clays, and colloids.
- Xavier Trepat
- Linhong Deng
- Jeffrey J. Fredberg