bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.27.357178; this version posted October 27, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. Negative durotaxis: cell movement toward softer environments Aleksi Isomursu1,*, Keun-Young Park2,*, Jay Hou3,*, Bo Cheng4,5,*, Ghaidan Shamsan3, Benjamin Fuller3, Jesse Kasim3, M. Mohsen Mahmoodi2, Tian Jian Lu6,7, Guy M. Genin4,5,8, Feng Xu4,5, Min Lin4,5,#, Mark Distefano2,#, Johanna Ivaska1,9,#, and David J. Odde3,# 1Turku Bioscience Centre, University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University, 20520 Turku, Finland 2Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455, MN, USA 3Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455, MN, USA 4The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, P.R. China 5Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, P.R. China 6State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, NanjinG 210016, P.R. China 7MOE Key Laboratory of Multifunctional Materials and Structures, Xi’an JiaotonG University, Xi’an 710049, P.R. China 8NSF Science and TechnoloGy Center for EnGineerinG MechanobioloGy, WashinGton University in St. Louis, St. Louis 63130, MO, USA 9Department of Biochemistry, University of Turku, 20520 Turku, Finland *Equal contribution #Corresponding authors Email:
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[email protected] (M.L.) Abstract: Durotaxis – the ability of cells to sense and migrate along stiffness gradients – is important for embryonic development and has been implicated in pathologies including fibrosis and cancer.