Venkateshwarlu Akepogu, Singh Sundeep, Melnik Roderick
MS2Discovery Interdisciplinary Research Institute, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3C5, Canada.
Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE, C1A 4P3, Canada.
Biomech Model Mechanobiol. 2025 Feb;24(1):47-76. doi: 10.1007/s10237-024-01895-7. Epub 2024 Oct 26.
Living tissues experience various external forces on cells, influencing their behaviour, physiology, shape, gene expression, and destiny through interactions with their environment. Despite much research done in this area, challenges remain in our better understanding of the behaviour of the cell in response to external stimuli, including the arrangement, quantity, and shape of organelles within the cell. This study explores the electromechanical behaviour of biological cells, including organelles like microtubules, mitochondria, nuclei, and cell membranes. A two-dimensional bio-electromechanical model for two distinct cell structures has been developed to analyze the behavior of the biological cell to the external electrical and mechanical responses. The piezoelectric and flexoelectric effects have been included via multiphysics coupling for the biological cell. All the governing equations have been discretized and solved by the finite element method. It is found that the longitudinal stress is absent and only the transverse stress plays a crucial role when the mechanical load is imposed on the top side of the cell through compressive displacement. The impact of flexoelectricity is elucidated by introducing a new parameter called the maximum electric potential ratio ( ). It has been found that depends upon the orientation angle and shape of the microtubules. The magnitude of exhibit huge change when we change the shape and orientation of the organelles, which in some cases (boundary condition (BC)-3) can reach to three times of regular shape organelles. Further, the study reveals that the number of microtubules significantly impacts effective elastic and piezoelectric coefficients, affecting cell behavior based on structure, microtubule orientation, and mechanical stress direction. The insight obtained from the current study can assist in advancements in medical therapies such as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
活组织会受到作用于细胞的各种外力影响,这些外力通过与细胞环境的相互作用,影响细胞的行为、生理机能、形状、基因表达和命运。尽管在该领域已开展了大量研究,但在更好地理解细胞对外部刺激的反应行为方面仍存在挑战,包括细胞内细胞器的排列、数量和形状等。本研究探讨了生物细胞的机电行为,包括微管、线粒体、细胞核和细胞膜等细胞器。已开发出一种针对两种不同细胞结构的二维生物机电模型,以分析生物细胞对外部电响应和机械响应的行为。通过多物理场耦合将压电效应和挠曲电效应纳入生物细胞模型。所有控制方程均已通过有限元方法离散化并求解。研究发现,当通过压缩位移在细胞顶部施加机械载荷时,纵向应力不存在,只有横向应力起关键作用。通过引入一个名为最大电势比( )的新参数来阐明挠曲电效应的影响。已发现 取决于微管的取向角和形状。当我们改变细胞器的形状和取向时, 的大小会发生巨大变化,在某些情况下(边界条件(BC)-3)可达到规则形状细胞器的三倍。此外,研究表明微管的数量会显著影响有效弹性系数和压电系数,进而根据结构、微管取向和机械应力方向影响细胞行为。从当前研究中获得的见解有助于推进组织工程和再生医学等医学治疗方法的发展。
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