Pericytes, the mural cells of blood capillaries, have an important role in the regulation of the blood flow through the capillaries. In many pathological conditions in the vascular network,...Show morePericytes, the mural cells of blood capillaries, have an important role in the regulation of the blood flow through the capillaries. In many pathological conditions in the vascular network, pericytes are the main cause of a disease. They contain contractile proteins that are attached to fibronectin patches in a shared basement membrane with the capillary. Therefore, the pericyte is able to exert forces and regulate the vessel diameter. In our work, the main question was how the forces of pericytes relate in hypoxia and ischemia. We showed that pericytes in simulated hypoxia have a decrease in force application and an increase in cell spreading area compared to normal conditions. In simulated ischemia pericytes decrease their cell spreading area and have a slightly decreased force application. A second question we discussed is how the substrate stiffness plays a role in the force application in normal conditions. The gradient of force application for a range of substrate stiffnesses of 11.6 to 137 kPa is dependent of the cell type. For fibroblasts the force and the cell spreading area increased with increasing substrate stiffness. However, pericytes show a high force application on low and high substrate stiffnesses and have a low force application on intermediate stiffnesses. In order to find the force that a cell exert, we used a model that mimiced the fibronectin patches in the basement membrane. Cells were seeded on micropillar arrays made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) that were functionalized with fibronectin. The deflection of the pillars was used to calculate the force applied by the cell.Show less