Modeling and analysis of mechanical properties of single cells

Cells can be regarded as a complex network, which contains thousands of criss-cross signal pathways. The mechanical properties of a cell reflect the structure and composition of its cytoskeleton and are closely related to the cellular biological functions and physiological activities. In this study, we develop a dynamical model with cellular viscoelasticity properties as the system parameters to describe the stress-relaxation phenomenon of a single cell under the indentation of atomic force microscope (AFM). The system order and parameters were identified and analyzed. The parameters identified with this model represent the cellular mechanical elasticity and viscosity respectively and can be used to classify cell types and discriminate cellular state