Journal
JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS
Volume 44, Issue 4, Pages 771-773Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2010.10.044
Keywords
Muscle; Extracellular matrix; Connective tissue; Mechanical properties
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health [AR40050]
- Department of Veterans Affairs
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The importance of the extracellular matrix (ECM) in muscle is widely recognized, since ECM plays a central role in proper muscle development (Buck and Horwitz, 1987), tissue structural support (Purslow, 2002), and transmission of mechanical signals between fibers and tendon (Huijing, 1999). Since substrate biomechanical properties have been shown to be critical in the biology of tissue development and remodeling (Engler et al., 2006; Gilbert et al., 2010), it is likely that mechanics are critical for ECM to perform its function. Unfortunately, there are almost no data available regarding skeletal muscle ECM viscoelastic properties. This is primarily due to the impossibility of isolating and testing muscle ECM. Therefore, this note presents a new method to quantify viscoelastic ECM modulus by combining tests of single muscle fibers and fiber bundles. Our results demonstrate that ECM is a highly nonlinearly elastic material, while muscle fibers are linearly elastic. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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