10.6084/m9.figshare.7970429.v1
C.N. Holenstein
C.N.
Holenstein
C.R. Lendi
C.R.
Lendi
Nino Wili
Nino
Wili
J.G. Snedeker
J.G.
Snedeker
Simulation and evaluation of 3D traction force microscopy
Taylor & Francis Group
2019
Traction force microscopy
simulation
evaluation
digital volume correlation
2019-04-09 12:23:16
Journal contribution
https://tandf.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Simulation_and_evaluation_of_3D_traction_force_microscopy/7970429
<p>Measuring cell-generated forces by Traction Force Microscopy (TFM) has become a standard tool in cell mechanobiology. Although widely used in two dimensional (2D) experiments, only a few methods exist to measure traction in three-dimensional (3D) cell culture, since 3D volumetric high-resolution microscopy and more demanding computational approaches are required. Although it is commonly known that the selected experimental and computational setup highly influence the quality and accuracy of the results, no existing methods can adequately assess the errors involved in this process. We present a fully integrated simulation and evaluation platform that allows one to simulate TFM images and quantify errors of an applied approach for traction stress reconstruction, in order to improve experiments that attempt to measure mechanical interaction in cellular systems. In this context, we show that a careful parameter selection can decrease the reconstructed traction error by up to 40%.</p>