{"doi":"10.1101/2021.08.02.454500","title":"Black Dots: Microcontact-Printed, Reference-Free Traction Force Microscopy","abstract":"ABSTRACT Measuring the traction forces produced by cells provides insight into their behavior and physiological function. Here, we developed a technique (dubbed ‘black dots’) that microcontact prints a fluorescent micropattern onto a flexible substrate to measure cellular traction forces without constraining cell shape or needing to detach the cells. To demonstrate our technique, we assessed human platelets, which can generate a large range of forces within a population. We find platelets that exert more force have more spread area, are more circular, and have more uniformly distributed F-actin filaments. As a result of the high yield of data obtainable by this technique, we were able to evaluate multivariate mixed effects models with interaction terms and conduct a clustering analysis to identify clusters within our data. These statistical techniques demonstrated a complex relationship between spread area, circularity, F-actin dispersion, and platelet force, including cooperative effects that significantly associate with platelet traction forces. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":225970,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9507,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":368650,"name":"Molly Y. Mollica","orcid":"0000-0002-5975-3539","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":634347,"name":"Andrea Leonard","orcid":"0000-0002-1846-4925","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":685567,"name":"Jeffrey Miles","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":715066,"name":"John Hocter","orcid":"0000-0003-0571-8612","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":715067,"name":"Zizhen Song","orcid":"0000-0002-0281-5604","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":354143,"name":"Moritz Stolla","orcid":"0000-0002-2866-1674","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437660,"name":"Sangyoon J. Han","orcid":"0000-0002-1384-665X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":715961,"name":"Ashley Emery","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":715068,"name":"Wendy E. Thomas","orcid":"0000-0001-8602-0819","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":366670,"name":"Nathan J. Sniadecki","orcid":"0000-0001-6960-4492","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":366666,"name":"Kevin M. Beussman","orcid":"0000-0003-2169-4104","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:54:30.292454Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}