  Biological cells sense and respond to mechanical forces, but how such a
mechanosensing proccess takes place in a nonlinear inhomogeneous fibrous matrix
remains unknown. We show that cells in a fibrous matrix induce deformation
fields that propagate over a longer range than predicted by linear elasticity.
Synthetic, linear elastic hydrogels used in many mechanotransduction studies
fail to capture this effect. We develop a nonlinear microstructural finite
element model for a fiber network to simulate localized deformations induced by
cells. The model captures measured cell- induced matrix displacements from
experiments and identifies an important mechanism for long range cell
mechanosensing: loss of compression stiffness due to microbuckling of
individual fibers. We show evidence that cells sense each other through the
formation of localized intercellular bands of tensile deformations caused by
this mechanism.
