C. Ross Ethier^1,*, Dillon M. Brown¹, Erica Landis², Machelle T. Pardue^1,2,3

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 61-63, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.07377

Abstract Myopia, or near-sightedness, is a common ocular condition in which the eye elongates excessively. Development of myopia is associated with, and thought to be facilitated by, changes in the biomechanical properties of the sclera (the white part of the eye). We characterized scleral biomechanics in a mouse model of myopia using unconfirmed compression testing and biphasic theory to extract scleral permeability, in- plane scleral tensile modulus, and through-plane scleral compressive modulus. We find that myopia reduces in-plane tensile modulus and permeability, consistent with scleral tissue remodeling. Such biomechanical outcome measures may offer advantages over more traditional assessments of myopia-associated changes… More >

Zhuanyuan Meng¹, Tao Ma², Zhihui Dong², Shengzhang Wang^1,*, Weiguo Fu²

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 60-60, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.07253

Abstract Thoracic endovascular aortic repair has been widely applied to treat Stanford Type B aortic dissection. However, retrograde type A dissection can occur as a complication after thoracic endovascular repair for Stanford type B aortic dissection. In order to investigated the possible mechanical reasons of the new entry occurring when stent grafts were implanted into the true lumen of one type B aortic dissection, a framework of virtual implantation of stent-graft by using finite element simulations was developed in this paper. The animal experiments were adopted to verify the finite element simulation of stent-graft implantation. Moreover, the manufactured stent-grafts were implanted… More >

Caili Li^1,§, Christopher Baird², Jing Yao³, Chun Yang⁴, Liang Wang⁵, Han Yu⁵, Tal Geva⁶, Dalin Tang^5,*,7,§

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 59-59, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.06872

Abstract Pulmonary valve stenosis (PVS) is one common right ventricular outflow tract obstruction problem in patients with tetralogy of Fallot (TOF). Congenital bicuspid pulmonary valve (BPV) is a condition of valvular stenosis, and the occurrence of congenital BPV is often associated with TOF. Dynamic computational models of normal pulmonary root (PR) with tri-leaflet and PR with BPV in patients with TOF were developed to investigate the effect of geometric structure of BPV on valve stress and strain distributions. The pulmonary root geometry included valvular leaflets, sinuses, interleaflet triangles and annulus. Mechanical properties of pulmonary valve leaflet were obtained from biaxial testing… More >

Xueying Huang^1,*, Long Deng², Chun Yang³, Mary Lesperance⁴, Dalin Tang⁵

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 58-58, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.06969

Abstract Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) occurs in about 1 of every 500 adults in the general population. It has been reported that left ventricular outflow tract obstruction (LVOTO) is observed in 70% patients with HCM. Systolic anterior motion (SAM) of the mitral valve (MV) is the dominant cause of dynamic outflow tract obstruction in most patients with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM). Currently, the hemodynamic mechanisms of SAM remain unclear. In this study, we developed 12 active and corresponding passive models based on 6 patients’ pre- and post-operative ECG-gated cardiac CT images of patients’ LV at the pre-SAM time point (5% RR interval).… More >

Han Yu¹, Tal Geva², Rahul H. Rathod², Alexander Tang², Chun Yang³, Zheyang Wu³, Kristen L. Billiar⁴, Xueying Huang⁵, Dalin Tang^1,*,3

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 56-57, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.07257

Abstract Computational biomechanical models are widely used in cardiovascular research for better understanding of mechanisms governing disease development, quantitative diagnostic strategies and improved surgical designs with better outcome. Patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) account for the majority of cases with late onset right ventricle (RV) failure. The current surgical approach, which includes pulmonary valve replacement/insertion (PVR), has yielded mixed results. An innovative PVR surgical approach was proposed using active contracting bands to help ventricle to contract and improve RV function measured by ejection fraction [1]. Muscle active contraction caused by sarcomere shortening leads to change of zero-load configurations. In… More >

Long Li¹, Jinglei Hu², Fan Song^1,*

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 54-55, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.07718

Abstract Cell adhesion is a fundamental biological process involved in many crucial cellular activities such as tissue formation, immune response, and cell locomotion [1, 2]. The adhesion process is mediated by the specific binding of membrane-anchored receptor and ligand proteins, which is quantified by the two-dimensional binding equilibrium constant [3-5]. These adhesion proteins are associated with cell membranes either via transmembrane domains or via GPI anchors, and may very likely generate membrane curvature, which has been shown for a number of membrane proteins to play an important role in organelle shaping, vesicle trafficking, cell fusion and division as well as protein… More >

Minliang Liu¹, Liang Liang², Xiaoying Lou³, Glen Iannucci³, Edward Chen³, Bradley Leshnower³, Wei Sun^1,*

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 53-53, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.07387

Abstract It is well known that mechanical properties of the aortic wall exhibit patient-specific variations. Recent experimental findings also suggest the aortic wall properties are highly region-specific [1-2]. Thus, in vivo heterogeneous (non-uniform) nonlinear mechanical properties of the aortic wall of individual patients needs to be noninvasively identified for accurate prediction of clinical events (e.g. aortic rupture).
In this study, we developed an inverse approach for identification of patient-specific non-uniform material properties of the aortic wall from gated 3D CT scans. This inverse approach leverages the fact that the in vivo transmural mean stress (tension) of the aortic wall is… More >

Xuehuan He¹, Stephane Avril², Jia Lu^1,*

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 50-52, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.07390

Abstract A Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP) neural network model [1] is developed to predict the strength of ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm (ATAA) tissues using tension-strain data and assess local rupture risk. The data were collected through in vitro inflation tests on ATAA samples from 12 patients who underwent surgical intervention [2]. An inverse stress analysis was performed to compute the wall tension at Gauss points. Some of these Gauss points are at or near sites where the samples eventually ruptured, while others are at locations where the tissue remained intact. A total of 27,648 tension- strain curves, including 26,676 2223 nonrupture and… More >

Satoshi Ii^1,*, Keisuke Ito¹, Naoya Takakusaki¹, Naoya Sakamoto¹

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 49-49, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.07378

Abstract Cells adhere to a substrate and generate traction forces in focal adhesions that enable them to apprehend extracellular mechanical properties [1]. Current concerns are focused on mechanisms how the mechanical balances hold in the cell and affect the cell behavior, and therefore non-invasive measurement techniques for the cell traction forces are required. The cell traction force microscopy (TFM) generalized by Dembo and Wang [2] is an attractive approach to non-invasively estimate cell traction force fields, in which an inverse problem is solved using a mechanical model of the substrate and displacement fields from fluorescent images of immersed beads in the… More >

Sevan Goenezen^1,*, Ping Luo¹, Baik Jin Kim¹, Maulik Kotecha¹, Yue Mei^2,3

Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics, Vol.16, Suppl.2, pp. 46-48, 2019, DOI:10.32604/mcb.2019.07348

Abstract It is well known that the mechanical properties of tissues may vary spatially due to changing tissue types or due to inherent tissue disease. For example, the biomechanical properties are known to vary throughout blood vessels [1]. Diseases such as cancers may also lead to locally altered mechanical properties, thus allow a preliminary diagnosis via finger palpation. Quantifying the mechanical property distribution of tissues for a given constitutive equation will allow to characterize the biomechanical response of tissues. This may help to 1) predict disease progression, 2) diagnose diseases that alter the biomechanics of the tissue, e.g., skin cancers, breast… More >