VAN-CHIEN BUI^*

BIOCELL, Vol.46, No.7, pp. 1629-1632, 2022, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2022.018364

Abstract Microenvironment contains biophysical and biochemical elements to maintain survival, growth, proliferation, and differentiation of cells. Any change can lead to cell response to the mechanical forces, which can be described by elasticity. It is an indicator of a cell’s state since it plays an important role in many cellular processes. In many cases, cell elasticity is measured by using discontinuous manner, which may not allow elucidating real-time activity of individual live cells in physiological condition or cell response against microenvironmental changes. I argue that measuring cell elasticity using continuously repetitive nanoindentation technique is important that should be considered. As an… More >

Peter M. Pinsky^*

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.129, No.3, pp. 1329-1350, 2021, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2021.017740

Abstract A fundamental problem for cells with their fragile membranes is the control of their volume. The primordial solution to this problem is the active transport of ions across the cell membrane to modulate the intracellular osmotic pressure. In this work, a theoretical model of the cellular pump-leak mechanism is proposed within the general framework of linear nonequilibrium thermodynamics. The model is expressed with phenomenological equations that describe passive and active ionic transport across cell membranes, supplemented by an equation for the membrane potential that accounts for the electrogenicity of the ionic pumps. For active ionic transport, the model predicts that… More >

K. Y. Volokh^*

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.8, No.3, pp. 195-214, 2011, DOI:10.3970/mcb.2011.008.195

Abstract All models are wrong, but some are useful. This famous saying mirrors the situation in cell mechanics as well. It looks like no particular model of the cell deformability can be unconditionally preferred over others and different models reveal different aspects of the mechanical behavior of living cells. The purpose of the present work is to discuss the so-called tensegrity models of the cell cytoskeleton. It seems that the role of the cytoskeleton in the overall mechanical response of the cell was not appreciated until Donald Ingber put a strong emphasis on it. It was fortunate that Ingber linked the… More >

T. Zhang^*

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.8, No.3, pp. 169-194, 2011, DOI:10.3970/mcb.2011.008.169

Abstract Cytoplasmic motion assumed as a steady state laminar flow induced by cytoskeleton stretching in a cell is determined and its effect on the mechanical behavior of the cell under externally applied forces is demonstrated. Non-Newtonian fluid is assumed for the multiphase cytoplasmic fluid and the analytical velocity field around the macromolecular chain is obtained by solving the reduced nonlinear momentum equation using homotopy technique. The entropy generation by the fluid internal friction is calculated and incorporated into the entropic elasticity based 8-chain constitutive relations. Numerical examples showed strengthening behavior of cells in response to externally applied mechanical stimuli. The spatial… More >

Weijuan Yao^*, Lanping Amy Sung^†

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.6, No.1, pp. 71-82, 2009, DOI:10.3970/mcb.2009.006.071

Abstract Erythrocyte tropomodulin (E-Tmod) is a tropomyosin-binding and actin capping protein at the point end of the filaments. It is part of a molecular ruler that plays an important role in generating short actin protofilaments critical for the integrity of the cell membrane. Here, with the use of \textit {E-Tmod+/lacZ} mice, we demonstrated a specific E-Tmod expression in horizontal cells (HCs) in the retina, and analyzed the stress-strain relationship of HCs, vertically oriented neurons, and retinal ganglial cells (RGC) under normal and high intraocular pressure (IOP). Since their dendrites are oriented laterally in a plane and form most complicated synapses with… More >

E. P. Yalcintas¹, J. Hu¹, Y. Liu^1,2, A. Voloshin^1,2,3

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.98, No.2, pp. 151-180, 2014, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2014.098.151

Abstract Mechanical behavior of cells plays a crucial role in response to external stimuli and environment. It is very important to elucidate the mechanisms of cellular activities like spreading and alignment as it would shed light on further biological concepts. In this study, a multi-scale computational approach is adopted by modeling the cytoskeleton of cell as a tensegrity structure. The model is based on the complementary force balance between the tension and compression elements, resembling the internal structure of cell cytoskeleton composed of microtubules and actin filaments. The effect of surface topology on strain energy of a spread cell is investigated… More >