Relationship between orientation angle in intracellular stress fibers and range of uniaxial cyclic stretch

We hypothesized an avoidance of deformation and a limit of sensitivity of cell response to the mechanical stimulus for the orientation of stress fibers in cultured cells on a silicone membrane which was subjected to a uniaxial cyclic stretch. We compared the theoretical prediction with the experimental result of stress fibers in the human umbilical vein endothelial cells under various ranges of uniaxial cyclic stretch (Takemasa et al. 1998). The results showed that the proposed hypothesis predicted the orientation of stress fibers under various ranges of cyclic stretch well.