J025013 Mechanical Model of Adherent Cell Incorporating Cytoskeletal Orientation

Abstract

We presented an adherent cell model on a rigid substrate incorporating cytoskeletal orientation based on a minimum energy concept. A spherical cell model was spread on a plane so as to match with a cellular outline obtained from the fluorescence image of a real cell. In the process, we optimized the cytoskeletal element's orientations in the cell model by repeatedly changing it with the simulated annealing algorithm considering morphological characteristics of a real cell. The results demonstrated that a cellular long axis and relationships between the normalized cellular height and surface area in our cell model were in agreement with the real cell data. Also, the distributions and average value of the angle between the cellular long axis and the orientation directions of cytoskeletal elements agreed with our experimental data. In addition, the strain distribution of cytoskeletal elements in the model after spreading corresponded with that of available experimental data.