Cyclic uniaxial mechanical stretching of cells using a LEGO® parts-based mechanical stretcher system

Mechanical cues are essential to the regulation of cell and tissue
physiology. Henceforth, it has become an utmost necessity for cell
biologists to account for those mechanical parameters when investigating
biological processes and they need devices to manipulate cells
accordingly. Here, we report a simple mechanical cell stretching system
that can generate uniaxial cyclic mechanical stretch on cells in tissue
culture. This system is based upon a low-cost battery-powered uniaxial
cyclic mechanical stretcher exclusively built out of LEGO® parts combined
to a stretchable PDMS tissue culture plate in order to grow and stretch
cells. We characterize the system and show that it can be used with a wide
variety of downstream applications including immunofluorescence, Western
blotting and biochemical assays. We also illustrate how this system can be
useful in a study as we investigated the behavior of integrin adhesion
complexes upon cell stretching. We therefore present a cost-effective,
multipurpose cell stretching system that should help understand mechanical
signaling.