Zemel A, Bischofs I B, Safran S A
Department of Materials and Interfaces, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Sep 22;97(12):128103. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.128103. Epub 2006 Sep 21.
Cells play an active role in the maintenance of mechanical homeostasis within tissues and their response to elastic forces is important for tissue engineering. We predict the collective response of an ensemble of contractile cells in a three-dimensional elastic medium to externally applied strain fields. Motivated by experiment, we model the cells as polarizable force dipoles that change their orientation in response to the local elastic strain. The analogy between the mechanical response of these systems and the dielectric response of polar molecules is used to calculate the elastic response function. We use this analogy to evaluate the average cell orientation, the mean polarization stress, and the effective elastic constants of the material, as a function of the cell concentration and matrix properties.
细胞在维持组织内的力学稳态中发挥着积极作用，并且它们对弹力的响应对于组织工程很重要。我们预测三维弹性介质中一群收缩细胞对外部施加应变场的集体响应。受实验启发，我们将细胞建模为可极化的力偶极子，它们会根据局部弹性应变改变方向。利用这些系统的力学响应与极性分子的介电响应之间的类比来计算弹性响应函数。我们利用这种类比来评估平均细胞取向、平均极化应力以及材料的有效弹性常数，作为细胞浓度和基质特性的函数。
