Abstract:
This paper presents a biomechanical analysis of the chemomechanics at the cell-matrix interface, using a multiscale computational approach to understand the complex feedback between a cell and its surrounding microenvironment. The study addresses how the chemomechanical properties of the extracellular environment influence cell adhesion, substratum deformation, and migration potential. The research is conducted at two distinct length scales: the molecular and the continuum. At the molecular level, steered molecular dynamics (SMD) simulations were used to investigate how factors like extracellular matrix (ECM) stiffness and pH influence the binding of cell surface receptors and ECM ligands, which in turn affects the formation and dissolution of focal adhesions. The results from this part of the study demonstrated that a ligand-receptor complex attached to a stiffer ECM tether has a shorter binding lifetime, which could have implications for the dynamics of focal adhesion formation in pathological conditions like a tumor microenvironment. At the continuum scale, finite element modeling (FEM) was used to simulate how a cell deforms the adjacent substrata based on ECM stiffness and thickness. This part of the research aims to define the length scales over which a cell probes its mechanical microenvironment and provides insights for the design of synthetic substrata for cell biology experiments.
