Title
In Silico Stress Fibre Content Affects Peak Strain In Cytoplasm And Nucleus But Not In The Membrane For Uniaxial Substrate Stretch
Abstract
Existing in silico models for single cell mechanics feature limited representations of cytoskeletal structures that contribute substantially to the mechanics of a cell. We propose a micromechanical hierarchical approach to capture the mechanical contribution of actin stress fibres. For a cell-specific fibroblast geometry with membrane, cytoplasm and nucleus, the Mori-Tanaka homogenization method was employed to describe cytoplasmic inhomogeneities and constitutive contribution of actin stress fibres. The homogenization was implemented in a finite element model of the fibroblast attached to a substrate through focal adhesions. Strain in cell membrane, cytoplasm and nucleus due to uniaxial substrate stretch was assessed for different stress fibre volume fractions and different elastic modulus of the substrate. A considerable decrease of the peak strain with increasing stress fibre content was observed in cytoplasm and nucleus but not the membrane, whereas the peak strain in cytoplasm, nucleus and membrane increased for increasing elastic modulus of the substrate.
Year
DOI
Venue
2021
10.1007/s11517-021-02393-z
MEDICAL & BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING & COMPUTING
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Cell mechanics, Cytoskeleton, Micromechanical homogenization, Mori-Tanaka scheme
Journal
59
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
9
0140-0118
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Tamer Abdalrahman100.34
Neil H Davies200.34
Thomas Franz300.34