Study of Matrigel deformation during the formation of 3D tubular networks of intestinal epithelial cells

Abstract

Intestinal epithelial cells auto-organize in both three-dimensional (3D) networks and two-dimensional (2D) monolayers depending on the concentration of the extracellular matrix in which they are being grown (Matrigel) causing its deformation. With the use of time lapse videos and fluorescence beads we obtain the velocity fields with a technique called Particle Image Velocimetry. We then use these velocity fields to characterize the rates of deformation with the strain rate tensor. We observe how the magnitudes of the rates of deformation for the high concentration Matrigel are larger than the ones of the low concentration Matrigel which correlates with the observations