Application of hyperelastic models in mechanical properties prediction of mouse oocyte and embryo cells at large deformations

Abstract

Biological cell studies have many applications in biology, cell manipulation, and diagnosis of diseases such as cancer and malaria. In this study, Inverse Finite Element Method (IFEM) combined with Levenberg-Marquardt optimization algorithm has been used to extract and characterize material properties of mouse oocyte and embryo cells at large deformations. Then, the simulation results have been validated using data from experimental works. In this study, it is assumed that cell material is hyperelastic, isotropic, homogenous, and axisymmetric. For inverse analysis, FEM model of cell injection experiment implemented in Abaqus software has been coupled with Levenberg-Marquardt optimization algorithm written in Matlab; through this coupling, the optimum hyperelastic coefficients, which give the best match between experimental and simulated forces, are extracted. Results show that among different hyperelastic material models, Ogden material is suitable for characterization of mouse oocyte cell and Mooney-Rivlin or polynomial is suitable for characterization of mouse embryo cell. Moreover, the evaluated Poisson ratio of the cell is obtained to be equal to 0.5, which indicates that the structural materials of mouse oocyte and embryo are compressible.