Fig. 3

Rheology measurement of a fibroblast cell. a Representative image of the region of the cell where the measurement is performed. Both beads (“reference bead” and “cell bead”) are shown. Scale bar is 3 μm. b Plot of the amplitudes of both beads over time. A sinusoidal movement of 0.5 μm in amplitude is produced by the piezoelectric stage. The “reference bead”, oscillates following the movement of the piezoelectric stage. The “cell bead”, oscillates with a different amplitude and phase. Once the stage has oscillated covering the frequency range of interest, and before the oscillation has stopped, the laser is turned off in order to verify if the “cell bead” is still in contact with the cell, following the same oscillating movement as the “reference bead”. c Plot of “cell bead” vs “reference bead” displacements for 1, 14 and 35Hz corresponding to the oscillations in (b)