Multiphase Poro-Viscohyperelastic Modeling of Soft Biological Cells
ORAL
Abstract
Soft biological cells exhibit intricate mechanical properties that arise from their complex composition and structure. Understanding and accurately modelling the mechanical behaviour of living cells has become a subject of utmost importance for a wide range of biomedical applications, including drug delivery, tissue engineering and medical image analysis.
In this study, we have developed a multicomponent FEM that incorporates the Membrane that encloses the Cytoplasm and the Nucleus, located in the interior. The cytoplasm of soft cells exhibits both elastic and viscoelastic mechanical properties because of their deformable solid matrix, formed by organelles, which interacts with the entrapped cytosolic liquid [1], [2]. Provided that, the cytoplasmic space is represented as a biphasic material incorporating an incompressible visco-hyperelastic solid network and a Newtonian incompressible fluid. The nucleus, on the other hand, apart from a nonlinear stress-strain relationship, exhibits also time-dependent phenomena. At last, the cell membrane is modelled as a thin stiff hyperelastic layer. The cell is subjected to uniaxial tensile tests under different loading conditions including elongation, compression and loading/unloading cycles. The predictions of our numerical simulations are able to capture the key mechanical features of soft biological cells, such as the nonlinear stress-strain behaviour and the time-dependent viscoelastic response. Then, we examine the influence of various mechanical and viscoelastic properties in the tensile dynamics of the cell through a comprehensive parametric analysis.
In this study, we have developed a multicomponent FEM that incorporates the Membrane that encloses the Cytoplasm and the Nucleus, located in the interior. The cytoplasm of soft cells exhibits both elastic and viscoelastic mechanical properties because of their deformable solid matrix, formed by organelles, which interacts with the entrapped cytosolic liquid [1], [2]. Provided that, the cytoplasmic space is represented as a biphasic material incorporating an incompressible visco-hyperelastic solid network and a Newtonian incompressible fluid. The nucleus, on the other hand, apart from a nonlinear stress-strain relationship, exhibits also time-dependent phenomena. At last, the cell membrane is modelled as a thin stiff hyperelastic layer. The cell is subjected to uniaxial tensile tests under different loading conditions including elongation, compression and loading/unloading cycles. The predictions of our numerical simulations are able to capture the key mechanical features of soft biological cells, such as the nonlinear stress-strain behaviour and the time-dependent viscoelastic response. Then, we examine the influence of various mechanical and viscoelastic properties in the tensile dynamics of the cell through a comprehensive parametric analysis.
[1] E. Moeendarbary et al., Nat. Mater., vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 253–261, 2013, doi: 10.1038/nmat3517.
[2] K. Psaraki et al. Phys. Fluids, vol. 35, no. 2, p. 21902, 2023, doi: 10.1063/5.0136707.
*This work is part of the Research Project “Multiscale modelling for the autoregulation of Microvessels, CARE” which was supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.) under the “1st Call for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to support Faculty members and Researchers and the procurement of high-cost research equipment” (Project No. 876)
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Presenters
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Yiannis Dimakopoulos
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras
- University of Patras