Resumen: Adherent cells normally apply forces as a generic means of sensing and responding to the mechanical nature of their surrounding environment. How these forces vary as a function of the extracellular rigidity is critical to understanding the regulatory functions that drive important phenomena such as wound healing or muscle contraction. In recognition of this fact, experiments have been conducted to understand cell rigidity-sensing properties under known conditions of the extracellular environment, opening new possibilities for modeling this active behaviour. In this work, we provide a physics-based constitutive model taking into account the main structural components of the cell to reproduce its most significant contractile properties such as the traction forces exerted as a function of time and the extracellular stiffness. This model shows how the interplay between the time-dependent response of the acto-myosin contractile system and the elastic response of the cell components determine the mechano-sensing behaviour of single cells. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.1007/s10237-013-0508-x Año: 2014 Publicado en: Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology 13, 2 (2014), 451-462 ISSN: 1617-7959 Factor impacto JCR: 3.145 (2014) Categ. JCR: ENGINEERING, BIOMEDICAL rank: 17 / 76 = 0.224 (2014) - Q1 - T1 Categ. JCR: BIOPHYSICS rank: 26 / 73 = 0.356 (2014) - Q2 - T2 Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EUR/FP7/ERC2012-StG-306751 Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/BES-2010-029927-FPI Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/DPI2009-14115-CO3-01 Tipo y forma: Artículo (PostPrint) Área (Departamento): Mec. de Medios Contínuos y Teor. de Estructuras (Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica)