Mechanically optimized orientation of intracellular stress fibers under cyclic stretch

To elucidate the orientation of stress fibers in a cultured endothelial cell under cyclic stretch, we hypothesized that a stress fiber aligns so as to minimize the summation of its length change under cyclic stretch, and that there is a limit in the sensitivity of cellular response to the mechanical stimulus. Results from numerical simulations based on the continuum mechanics describe the experimental observations under uniaxial stretch well. They give us an insight to the biological phenomenon of the orientation in stress fibers under biaxial stretch from the viewpoint of mechanical engineering.