Biomechanical Cell Model by Liquid-Crystal Elastomers
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 140, Issue 4
Abstract
In this work, a soft matter cell model is proposed to simulate the cellular cytoskeleton network and motions of intermediate filaments during cell contact and adhesion, in an attempt to explain mechanical information exchange between cells and their extracellular environment. In particular, the cell is modeled as liquid-crystal elastomers. A microscale adhesive model has been introduced to describe the interaction between receptors and ligands. A Lagrange-type mesh-free Galerkin formulation and related computational algorithms for the proposed cell and adhesive contact model have been developed and implemented. A comparison study with experimental data has been conducted to validate the parameters of the cell model. By using the soft matter cell model, the soft adhesive contact process between cells and extracellular substrates with different stiffness has been simulated. The simulation shows that cell motion includes gliding as well as rolling forward along the substrate during the spreading process.
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Acknowledgments
This research is supported by the A. Richard Newton Research Breakthrough Award from Microsoft, a grant from the National Science Foundation (CMMI No. 0800744), and supported in part by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. HRD-0932339 through the CREST Center for Simulation, Visualization and Real Time Computing). This support is greatly appreciated.
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Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 140 • Issue 4 • April 2014
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 1, 2011
Accepted: Oct 18, 2013
Published online: Dec 27, 2013
Published in print: Apr 1, 2014
Discussion open until: May 27, 2014
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