finite element method using commercial software comsol multiphysics  (COMSOL Inc)

Journal: Science Advances

Article Title: Mechanical stimulation of single cells by reversible host-guest interactions in 3D microscaffolds

doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abc2648

Figure Lengend Snippet: ( A ) Schematic images of a cell that first invades the scaffold (1), builds up initial force in the process (2), and is later stretched by the scaffold (3). ( B ) Linear relationship of changes in displacement and changes in cellular traction forces, obtained by numerical calculations in COMSOL Multiphysics. Negative displacements are defined to point toward the center of the scaffold. ( C ) Exemplary images of displacements from numerical calculations before (left) and after (right) the swelling of the hydrogel. ( D ) Reaction of an exemplary cell in a scaffold as a function of time after addition of trypsin at minute 17. The black data points depict the displacement change, and the blue data points depict the change in traction force. ( E ) Optical micrographs of a cell before, during, and after addition of trypsin. The blue arrows indicate the displacement of the individual beams scaled by a factor of 10. The images below show a magnification of the left beam, with the green dashed line denoting the beam position of the initial frame and the blue dashed line denoting the position of the current frame. The numbers next to the arrow show the cellular reaction as a change in displacement and traction force relative to the first image. ( F ) Quantification of initial forces in the scaffolds for U2OS and NIH 3T3 cells. Each data point corresponds to one cell in a scaffold.

Article Snippet: Therefore, we used numerical finite element method calculations using the commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics.

Techniques: