The mechanical properties of tissues and cells including renal glomeruli are important
determinants of their differentiated state, function, and responses to injury but are not well
characterized or understood. Understanding glomerular mechanics is important for
understanding renal diseases attributable to abnormal expression or assembly of structural
proteins and abnormal hemodynamics. We use atomic force microscopy (AFM) and a new
technique, capillary micromechanics, to measure the elastic properties of rat glomeruli. The …

METHODS Materials. Sprague-Dawley rats were obtained from Harlan. The transgenic
mouse models of HIVAN (Tg26HIV/nl on the FVB/N background) and Alport syndrome
(Col4a3/and Col4a3/mice on the C57BL/6J background) were described previously (1, 5,
30). Chemicals, including latrunculin and blebbistatin, were obtained from Sigma unless
stated otherwise. Cytochalasin D was purchased from Calbiochem. DMEM was from
Meditech, and fetal bovine serum was from HyClone. The antibodies were obtained as …