Morphologies of Fibronectin Fibrils Formed under Shear Conditions and Their Cellular Adhesiveness Properties

: Fibrillar fi bronectin (FFN) is a biological active form of FN which form linear and branched meshwork around cells and support cellular activities. Previous studies have demonstrated that shear stress can induce cell-free FN fi brillogenesis. In this study, we further examined the effect of shear stress conditions on morphology of formed FFN and preliminarily looked for relationship between FFN ’ s morphology and cell adhesion. Plasma FN at 50 µg/ml was perfused through channel slides at shear rates of 500 s -1 or 4000 s -1 . Our results showed that there were four FFN structures formed: (1) FN nodules, (2) fi bril in different sizes (3) with or without nodule attachment, and (4) fi brillar matrix. At 4000 s -1 , FFN fi brils was formed within the fi rst 10 min and reached the highest surface coverage only after 20 min. In contrast, FFN formation was signi fi cant more slowly at 500 s -1 at which only FN nodules and small fi brils were formed. Platelets bound on thin layer of FN and rarely found on large FN fi brils. In contrast, fi broblast stretched their shape on platform of FFN matrix and bound actively to all types of FFNs. Taken together, our data suggests a morphological dependent biological activity of FFN. adhesion assays were performed on FFN with diverse morphologies. Our microscopic analysis