Biomaterial Database

Nonlinearities of biopolymer gels increase the range of force transmission. 2015

Xinpeng Xu, and Samuel A Safran

Department of Materials and Interfaces, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.

We present a model of biopolymer gels that includes two types of elastic nonlinearities, stiffening under extension and softening (due to buckling) under compression, to predict the elastic anisotropy induced by both external as well as internal (e.g., due to cell contractility) stresses in biopolymer gels. We show how the stretch-induced anisotropy and the strain-stiffening nonlinearity increase both the amplitude and power-law range of transmission of internal, contractile, cellular forces, and relate this to recent experiments.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D004548	Elasticity	Resistance and recovery from distortion of shape.
D005782	Gels	Colloids with a solid continuous phase and liquid as the dispersed phase; gels may be unstable when, due to temperature or other cause, the solid phase liquefies; the resulting colloid is called a sol.
D001704	Biopolymers	Polymers synthesized by living organisms. They play a role in the formation of macromolecular structures and are synthesized via the covalent linkage of biological molecules, especially AMINO ACIDS; NUCLEOTIDES; and CARBOHYDRATES.	Bioplastics,Bioplastic,Biopolymer
D013718	Tensile Strength	The maximum stress a material subjected to a stretching load can withstand without tearing. (McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 5th ed, p2001)	Strength, Tensile,Strengths, Tensile,Tensile Strengths
D016880	Anisotropy	A physical property showing different values in relation to the direction in or along which the measurement is made. The physical property may be with regard to thermal or electric conductivity or light refraction. In crystallography, it describes crystals whose index of refraction varies with the direction of the incident light. It is also called acolotropy and colotropy. The opposite of anisotropy is isotropy wherein the same values characterize the object when measured along axes in all directions.	Anisotropies
D017711	Nonlinear Dynamics	The study of systems which respond disproportionately (nonlinearly) to initial conditions or perturbing stimuli. Nonlinear systems may exhibit "chaos" which is classically characterized as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Chaotic systems, while distinguished from more ordered periodic systems, are not random. When their behavior over time is appropriately displayed (in "phase space"), constraints are evident which are described by "strange attractors". Phase space representations of chaotic systems, or strange attractors, usually reveal fractal (FRACTALS) self-similarity across time scales. Natural, including biological, systems often display nonlinear dynamics and chaos.	Chaos Theory,Models, Nonlinear,Non-linear Dynamics,Non-linear Models,Chaos Theories,Dynamics, Non-linear,Dynamics, Nonlinear,Model, Non-linear,Model, Nonlinear,Models, Non-linear,Non linear Dynamics,Non linear Models,Non-linear Dynamic,Non-linear Model,Nonlinear Dynamic,Nonlinear Model,Nonlinear Models,Theories, Chaos,Theory, Chaos