Adhesive models to understand the sensitivity of bio-molecules to environmental signals

Shaohua Chen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Recently, contact mechanics has been widely used to get some understanding of the biological adhesion mechanisms, such as cell-cell adhesion, insects' adhesion and locomotion. JKR theory is usually adopted as a basis, in which the interaction of molecules is considered in contrast to the classical Hertz solution. In this paper, two problems are summarized, which may give some insights to cells or bio-molecules sensitivity to environmental signals: (1) cell reorientation on a stretched substrate; (2) spontaneous detachment between cells or bio-molecules under the variation of environmental signals. The intention here is only to illustrate the possibilities that contact mechanics may explain or predict some biophenomena using simple mechanical models. A complete analysis taking into account the full biological complexities is far beyond the scope of this paper. With this objective in mind, the sensitivity of bio-molecules to the environmental signals is described through the variation of adhesive contact area, which is affected by the external forces or deformations. In the first problem, two-dimensional generalized JKRmodel is used to explain why there exist three stages with two critical values of stretch amplitude controlling cells' reorientation. Three-dimensional adhesive model is used in the second problem, to analyze the spontaneous detachment between two adhering cells or bio-molecules, which may happen at a critical condition.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)97-106
Number of pages10
JournalMCB Molecular and Cellular Biomechanics
Volume5
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Bio-molecule
  • Biological adhesion mechanism
  • Cell reorientation
  • Contact mechanics
  • Spontaneous detachment

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Chen, S. (2008). Adhesive models to understand the sensitivity of bio-molecules to environmental signals. MCB Molecular and Cellular Biomechanics, 5(2), 97-106.