A lower membrane tension increases the tendency of the cell to polarize.

(a) Threshold relationship between the amplitude and duration of stimuli for inducing cell polarity at different values of membrane tension. (b) The comparison of the proportion of polarized cells with low and high membrane tension in the simulation (left panel), of CSCs and NSCCs (middle panel), and in the experiment examining CSCs cultured in hypotonic medium (right panel). Error bars represent the standard deviation. (c) Representative images of polarized (left column) and nonpolarized (right two columns) NSCCs (top) and CSCs (bottom) on circular ECM patterns. Scale bar: 20 μm. In polarized NSCCs and CSCs, the Golgi (red) aggregates on one side of the nucleus (blue). However, in the nonpolarized NSCCs and CSCs, the Golgi (red) disperses throughout the cell (middle) or forms a ring around the nucleus (blue). (d) Comparison of relative cell deformation of NSCCs (top) and CSCs (bottom). Scale bar: 20 μm. Both CSCs and NSCCs have a round shape, as they are trapped by the electrodes (the two horizontal bars) with an electric field of 2 V (left). CSCs elongate much more than NSCCs along the direction of the electric field after the electric field is increased to 5 V for 15 s (right).