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Cellular stretch reveals superelastic powers

External forces can make cells undergo large, irreversible deformations. It emerges that stretched mammalian cells grown in vitro can enter a state called superelasticity, in which large, reversible deformations occur.
  1. Manuel Théry

    1. Manuel Théry is at UMR 1160, Paris Diderot University, Saint-Louis Hospital, CEA, INSERM, AP-HP, 75010 Paris, France, and at UMR5168, University Grenoble-Alpes, BIG/LPCV, CEA, CNRS, INRA, Grenoble, France.

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  2. Atef Asnacios

    1. Atef Asnacios is at UMR7057 CNRS, Paris Diderot University, MSC, 75205 Paris Cedex 13, France.

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In Rudyard Kipling’s classic children’s bedtime story1, the elephant’s elongated trunk arose because a crocodile grabbed “and pulled, and pulled, and pulled” on the nose of an elephant’s child. The elephant’s child escaped, but waited in vain for its nose to shrink back to normal. This scenario of an irreversible extension mirrors what happens in the laboratory when cells that are subject to external tension undergo major deformation. However, writing in Nature, Latorre et al.2 report that mammalian epithelial cells grown in vitro can, unexpectedly, demonstrate a mode of reversible, large-scale shape changes — a property termed superelasticity.

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Nature 563, 192-194 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07172-9

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