Analysis of the Adherent Cell Response to the Substrate Stiffness Using Tensegrity

In this study, we are looking to examine the reaction of the cell to a variety of substrate stiffnesses and explain the relationship between cell behavior and substrate mechanical properties. However, which tensegrity structure is appropriate for modeling a living cell? Is the structure's complexity play a major role? We used two spherical tensegrities with different complexities to assess the impact of the structure on the cell's mechanical response versus substrate's stiffness. Six- and twelve-strut tensegrities together with membrane, cytoplasm, nucleoskeleton, and nucleus envelope were assembled in Abaqus package to create a hybrid cell model. A compressive load was applied to the cell model and the reaction forces versus deflection curves were analyzed for number of substrate stiffness values. By analyzing the difference due to two different tensegrities it became clear that the lower density structure is a better choice for modeling stiffer cells. It was also found that the six-strut tensegrity is sensitive to higher range of substrate stiffness.PMID:38324074 | DOI:10.1007/s10439-024-03447-7
Source: Annals of Biomedical Engineering - Category: Biomedical Engineering Authors: Source Type: research