Effect of the object 3D shape on the viscoelastic testing in optical tweezers

Lingyao Yu and Yunlong Sheng

Viscoelastic testing of biological cells has been performed with the optical tweezers and stretcher. Historically, the cells were modeled by the spring-dashpot network or the power-law models, which can however characterize only the homogeneous, isotropic viscoelastic material, but not the 3D cell itself. Our mechanical and finite element analyses show that the cell elongations are different significantly for different cell 3D shapes in the creep testing. In the dynamic testing the loss tangent, which is measurable directly in the experiment, is not sensitive to the cell shape. However, the stress-strain hysteresis loop still depends on the cell 3D shape.

DOI