  Cell mechanical properties are fundamental to the organism but remain poorly
understood. We report a comprehensive phenomenological framework for the
nonlinear rheology of single fibroblast cells: a superposition of elastic
stiffening and viscoplastic kinematic hardening. Our results show, that in
spite of cell complexity its mechanical properties can be cast into simple,
well-defined rules, which provide mechanical cell strength and robustness via
control of crosslink slippage.
