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Abstract

Effective Tissue engineering ultimately depends on understanding the interplay between the proliferation and differentiation stages of development. One of the best systems to examine these processes is myogenesis. Activated myoblasts first undergo many rounds of cell division. Depending on the needs of the cells, myoblasts may next withdraw from the cell cycle to fuse to form myotubes. Division and fusion are differentially modulated by mechanical stimuli transmitted to the cell’s biosynthetic mechanisms via the actin-based cytoskeleton; Specifically cyclic stretch promotes proliferation and inhibits fusion. By inference, the nature of cell attachment to the substrate should also influence transition through myogenesis. We therefore investigated the effect of the extracellular matrix on behaving cells undergoing either cytokinesis or fusion using atomic force microscopy (AFM) as well as confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) in fluorescent mode.

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