Biomechanical phenotyping of minuscule soft tissues: An example in the rodent tricuspid valve.

ABSTRACT: The biomechanical phenotype of soft tissues - i.e., the sum of spatially- and directionally-varying mechanical properties - is a critical marker of tissue health and disease. While biomechanical phenotyping is always challenging, it is particularly difficult with miniscule tissues. For example, tissues from small animal models are often only millimeters in size, which prevents the use of traditional test methods, such as uniaxial tensile testing. To overcome this challenge, our current work describes and tests a novel experimental and numerical pipeline. First, we introduce a micro-bulge test device with which we pressurize and inflate miniscule soft tissues. We combine this microbulge device with an optical coherence tomography device to also image the samples during inflation. Based on p

SUBMITTER: Meador WD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11521389 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature