Understanding the complex relationship between substrate stiffness, contractility, and FN assembly is key to understanding states for which FN assembly is desirable, such as wound healing and tissue engineering applications, as well as understanding conditions for which FN assembly is not desirable, such as the desmoplastic extracellular matrix of a growing tumor, the fibrotic response to implanted material within the body, and scar tissue in fibrotic disease. Here, FN1 is linked to neoplasm.