Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA.
Biomolecules. 2021 Apr 7;11(4):540. doi: 10.3390/biom11040540.
Existent literature has limitations regarding the mechanical behavior of axonal cytoskeletal components in a high strain rate scenario, which is mainly due to limitations regarding the structure of some components such as tau protein and neurofilaments (NF). This study performs molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on NFs to extract their strain rate-dependent behavior. It is found that they are highly stretchable and show multiple stages of unfolding. Furthermore, NFs show high tensile stiffness. Also, viscoelastic modeling shows that they correspond to simplified viscoelastic models. This study effectively enhances the existent axonal models focusing on axonal injury.
现有文献在高应变速率情况下对轴突细胞骨架成分的力学行为研究存在局限性，这主要是由于一些成分（如 tau 蛋白和神经微丝（NF））的结构限制所致。本研究对 NF 进行分子动力学（MD）模拟，以提取其应变速率相关行为。结果表明，NF 具有高度的可拉伸性，并表现出多个展开阶段。此外，NF 表现出高拉伸刚度。此外，粘弹性建模表明它们对应于简化的粘弹性模型。本研究有效增强了现有的关注轴突损伤的轴突模型。
