Computational model of damage-induced growth in soft biological tissues considering the mechanobiology of healing
Creators: name: Gierig, Meike
name: Wriggers, Peter
name: Marino, Michele
Publisher: name: Berlin ; Heidelberg ; New York, NY : Springer
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Damage-induced growth
subject: Homogenized constrained mixtures
subject: Mechanobiology of healing
subject: Soft biological tissue mechanics
subject: Biochemistry
subject: Bioinformatics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences
subject: Collagen
subject: Histology
subject: Chemical and biologicals
subject: Computational framework
subject: Deformation gradients
subject: Elasto-plastic formulation
subject: Growth and remodeling
subject: Matrix metalloproteinases
subject: Non-linear finite elements
subject: Soft biological tissue
subject: Tissue
subject: collagen
subject: elastin
subject: growth factor
subject: matrix metalloproteinase
subject: biological model
subject: biomechanics
subject: collagen fiber
subject: computer model
subject: finite element analysis
subject: healing
subject: simulation
subject: soft tissue injury
subject: tension
subject: tissue growth
subject: biophysics
subject: chemistry
subject: computer simulation
subject: elasticity
subject: mechanical stress
subject: metabolism
subject: wound healing
subject: Biomechanical Phenomena
subject: Biophysics
subject: Computer Simulation
subject: Elasticity
subject: Finite Element Analysis
subject: Humans
subject: Matrix Metalloproteinases
subject: Stress, Mechanical
subject: Wound Healing
subject: Dewey Decimal Classification::500 | Naturwissenschaften::570 | Biowissenschaften, Biologie
subject: Dewey Decimal Classification::500 | Naturwissenschaften::540 | Chemie

description: Healing in soft biological tissues is a chain of events on different time and length scales. This work presents a computational framework to capture and couple important mechanical, chemical and biological aspects of healing. A molecular-level damage in collagen, i.e., the interstrand delamination, is addressed as source of plastic deformation in tissues. This mechanism initiates a biochemical response and starts the chain of healing. In particular, damage is considered to be the stimulus for the production of matrix metalloproteinases and growth factors which in turn, respectively, degrade and produce collagen. Due to collagen turnover, the volume of the tissue changes, which can result either in normal or pathological healing. To capture the mechanisms on continuum scale, the deformation gradient is multiplicatively decomposed in inelastic and elastic deformation gradients. A recently proposed elasto-plastic formulation is, through a biochemical model, coupled with a growth and remodeling description based on homogenized constrained mixtures. After the discussion of the biological species response to the damage stimulus, the framework is implemented in a mixed nonlinear finite element formulation and a biaxial tension and an indentation tests are conducted on a prestretched flat tissue sample. The results illustrate that the model is able to describe the evolutions of growth factors and matrix metalloproteinases following damage and the subsequent growth and remodeling in the respect of equilibrium. The interplay between mechanical and chemo-biological events occurring during healing is captured, proving that the framework is a suitable basis for more detailed simulations of damage-induced tissue response. © 2021, The Author(s).