Finding the best-fit crosslinker parameter values.

<p>(A) The sum of squared residuals (SSR) between the shear elastic moduli data from Stein et al. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0111896#pone.0111896-Stein1" target="_blank">[30]</a> and our simulations (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0111896#pone-0111896-g003" target="_blank">figure 3D</a>), for four different collagen densities. (B) The spline interpolation of (A) using the half of the prior parameter intervals provides smoother surface of the sum of squared residuals. (C) Intersection lines of experimental data plane with simulation surfaces of <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0111896#pone-0111896-g003" target="_blank">figure 3D</a>. (D) Zoomed-in contour plot of the 7^th spline interpolation of the SSR around the minimum value to the two times of the minimum value. Five points were selected for comparison: P1 (290.23 KPa for crosslinker strength, 15.19N for crosslinker density), P2 (400 KPa, 13.27N), P3 (634.38 KPa, 11.28N), P4 (700 KPa, 10.89N), and P5 (775.39 KPa, 10.58N). (E) Validation for the best-fit crosslinker parameter values. We have compared spline interpolated SSR estimation values with calculated SSR value using simulation results for these 5 selected crosslinker parameter points. 30 independent simulations were run to calculate SSR values. The P3 crosslinker parameter values were chosen as the best-fit value because both spline estimated SSR and calculated SSR using simulation are the lowest value.