L2-5 Microscopic Morphology and Computer Modelling Smooth Muscle.

Description of a realistic continuum model of a living tissue is one of the biggest challenges for continuum mechanics. The model should comprise the properties of extracellular matrix, membranes, cell-to-cell junctions, and cytoskeleton. As the macroscopic parameters might be identified much more easily than microscopic ones, the model serves as a translator between macroscopic and microscopic phenomena. The aim of this study was to supply a model of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and collagen connective tissue with known parameters and set up its behaviour so that in the future we would be able to identify the macroscopic response caused by adaptive or pathological changes of the tissue’s microstructure. The stiffness and ultimate strength of both living (n=50) and formalin-fixed (n=24) pedal integuments of a gastropod Limax maximus was measured with the Perkin Elmer DMA-7e and SC-FR050TH devices. The tissue samples underwent histological analysis. In ruptured samples (n=4) we assessed the length density of the profiles of the SMCs at the edge o