Fig. 1

Parallel plate rheometer. a Rheometer consisting of a rigid and a flexible microplate, the latter being used as a spring of calibrated stiffness to apply a sinusoidal compression to an isolated single cell. A displacement D(t) is applied to the base of the flexible microplate, resulting in a displacement d(t) at its tip. b Illustration of sinusoidal cell compression over time at f = 0.8 Hz. c Visualization of the sinusoidal displacement D(t), in blue, and the resulting displacement d(t), in orange. The red-dotted line shows the sinusoidal fit of the resulting displacement d(t). Scale bars = 10 µm