Mechanics & chemistry of biosystems : MCB最新文献

Biliary duct obstruction is an important clinical condition that affects millions of people worldwide. We have previously shown that the common bile duct (CBD) undergoes significant growth and remodelling post obstruction. The mechanical stress-strain relation is expected to change due to growth and remodeling in response to obstruction and hence pressure-overload. The objective of the present study was to characterize the material properties of the CBD of the sham group and at 3 hours, 12 hours, 2 days, 8 days and 32 days (n=5 in each group) after obstruction. The Fung's exponential strain energy function was used to relate stress to strain of the normal and remodeled ducts. The Marquardt-Levenberg and genetic algorithm methods were used for the determination of material constants for the exponential strain energy function. The elastic constants obtained by the two methods did not differ (p>0.254). We obtained stable and convergent material constants at every time point. The material constant that dictates the nonlinear rate of change in the circumferential stress with respect to strain increased significantly after obstruction acutely in the first 12 hrs., decreased at 2 days and finally increased montonically during the remaining 30 days. The acute initial increase in stiffness was simply due to the elastic response. The chronic remodeling process results in an initial circumferential softening followed by stiffening of the CBD. This study has important clinical significance for patients with CBD obstruction and for endoscopists and surgeons who treat the condition.

It is well established that adherent cells change their orientation in response to non-uniform substrate stretching. Most observations indicate that cells orient away from the direction of the maximal substrate strain, whereas in some cases cells also align with the direction of the maximal strain. Previous studies suggest that orientation and steering of the cell may be closely tied to cytoskeletal contractile stress but they could not explain the mechanisms that direct cell reorientation. This led us to develop a simple, mechanistic theoretical model that could predict a direction of cell orientation in response to mechanical nonuniformities of the substrate. The model leads to a simple physical mechanism--namely the contractile torque--that directs the cell toward a new orientation in response to anisotropic substrate stretching or substrate material anisotropy. A direction of the torque is determined by a dependence of the contractile stress on substrate strain. Model predictions are tested in the case of simple elongation of the substrate and found to be consistent with experimental data from the literature.

Recently Volokh and Lev (2005) argued that residual stresses could appear in growing arteries because of the arterial anisotropy. This conclusion emerged from a continuum mechanics theory of growth of soft biological tissues proposed by the authors. This theory included Lagrangian constitutive equations, which were formulated directly with respect to the reference configuration. Alternatively, it is possible to formulate Eulerian constitutive equations with respect to the current configuration and to 'pull them back' to the reference configuration. Such possibility is examined in the present work. The Eulerian formulation of the constitutive equations is used for a study of arterial growth. It is shown, particularly, that bending resultants are developed in the ring cross-section of the artery. These resultants may cause the ring opening or closing after cutting the artery in vitro as it is observed in experiments. It is remarkable that the results of the present study, based on the Eulerian constitutive equations, are very similar to the results of Volokh and Lev (2005), based on the Lagrangian constitutive equations. This strengthens the authors' argument that anisotropy is a possible reason for accumulation of residual stresses in arteries. This argument appears to be invariant with respect to the mathematical description.

In human cortical bone, cement lines (or reversal lines) separate osteons from the interstitial bone tissue, which consists of remnants of primary lamellar bone or fragments of remodeled osteons. There have been experimental evidences of the cement line involvement in the failure process of bone such as fatigue and damage. However, there are almost no experimental data on interfacial properties of cement lines in human cortical bone. The objective of this study is to design and assemble a precision and computer controlled osteon pushout microtesting system, and to experimentally determine the interfacial strength of cement lines in human cortical bone by performing osteon pushout tests. Thirty specimens were prepared from humeral diaphyses of four human subjects. Twenty specimens were tested under the condition of a small hole in the supporting plate, in which the cement line debonding occurred. The cement line interfacial strength ranged from 5.38 MPa to 10.85 MPa with an average of 7.31 +/- 1.73 MPa. On the other hand, ten specimens were tested under the condition of a large hole in the supporting plate, in which the shear failure inside osteons was observed. The specimens tested under the condition of the large hole resulted in an average shear strength of 73.71 +/- 15.06 MPa, ranging from 45.97 MPa to 93.74 MPa. Therefore, our results suggest that the cement line interface between osteon and interstitial bone tissue is weaker than that between bone tissue lamellae.

A simple phenomenological theory of tissue growth is used in order to demonstrate that volumetric growth combined with material anisotropy can lead to accumulation of residual stresses in arteries. The theory is applied to growth of a cylindrical blood vessel with the anisotropy moduli derived from experiments. It is shown that bending resultants are developed in the ring cross-section of the artery. These resultants may cause the ring opening or closing after cutting the artery in vitro as it is observed in experiments. It is emphasized that the mode of the arterial ring opening is affected by the parameters of anisotropy.