stress fibers
Cellular tension cables
Stress fibers are bundles of actin filaments that span the interior of cells, anchoring to the cell membrane and providing structural support.
They generate contractile force, helping cells maintain shape, adhere to surfaces, and migrate.
Stress fibers form in response to mechanical tension and are prominent in cells attached to rigid substrates: The fibroblasts developed thick stress fibers on the glass slide.
- actinCellular contractile protein
- myosinMotor protein enabling contraction
- cytoskeletonInternal protein support structure
- contractileAble to shrink or tighten
- filamentsVery thin threads
tension · bundles · microfilaments · anchoring · fibroblasts · crosslinks · cortex · polymerization · contraction · substrate · stiffness · pulling · taut · cytoplasm · migration · wound healing
- Mechanobiologymechanoreceptors, cytoskeleton, myosin, microtubules, viscoelasticity
- actinactin, microfilaments
- scaffold proteinsdishevelled, Shank, Homer, SAP
- cell partsnucleus, cytoplasm, mitochondria, ribosomes, cell membrane
- cell motilityactin, microtubule, cytoskeleton, flagella, cilia