Instruct: Identify the main and secondary category of Arxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: Nonlinear elasticity of the extracellular matrix fibers facilitates
  efficient inter-cellular mechanical communication   Biological cells embedded in fibrous matrices have been observed to form
inter-cellular bands of dense and aligned fibers, through which they
mechanically interact over long distances. Such matrix-mediated cellular
interactions have been shown to regulate a variety of biological processes. The
current study was aimed at exploring the effects of elastic nonlinearity of the
fibers contained in the extracellular matrix (ECM) on the transmission of
mechanical loads between contracting cells. Based on our biological
experiments, we developed a finite-element model of two contracting cells
embedded within a fibrous network. The individual fibers were modeled as
showing either linear elasticity, compression-microbuckling, tension-stiffening
or both of the latter. Compression-buckling resulted in smaller loads occurring
in the ECM, but these were more directed toward the neighboring cell. The
latter decreased with increasing cell-to-cell distance; when cells were >15
cell-diameters apart, no such inter-cellular interaction was observed.
Tension-stiffening further contributed to directing the loads toward the
neighboring cell, though to a smaller extent. The contraction of two
neighboring cells resulted in mutual attraction forces, which were considerably
increased by tension-stiffening, and decayed with increasing cell-to-cell
distances. Nonlinear elasticity contributed also to the onset of force polarity
on the cell boundary. The density and alignment of the fibers within the
inter-cellular band were considerably greater when fibers buckled under
compression, with tension-stiffening further contributing to this structural
remodeling. Our model demonstrates the contribution of nonlinear elasticity of
biological gels to directionality and efficiency of mechanical-signal transfer
between distant cells.

34
The categories of this paper are: chem-ph
1
The categories of this paper are: cs
27
The categories of this paper are: comp-gas
4
The categories of this paper are: cond-mat
32
The categories of this paper are: atom-ph
15
The categories of this paper are: nucl-ex
10
The categories of this paper are: q-bio
18
The categories of this paper are: econ
23
The categories of this paper are: solv-int
6
The categories of this paper are: astro-ph
13
The categories of this paper are: quant-ph
5
The categories of this paper are: gr-qc
14
The categories of this paper are: math-ph
11
The categories of this paper are: hep-lat
22
The categories of this paper are: chao-dyn
17
The categories of this paper are: q-fin