Structural Modeling of an Osteoblast Subjected to Hypergravity Loading

Abstract

Osteoblasts, the bone-forming cells, are sensitive to altered mechanical loads such as those induced by fluid shear forces and cyclic uniaxial tension and compression. The cytoskeleton is thought to play an important role in a cell's response to mechanical loading and to coordinate cell shape changes. While some theoretical calculations indicate that a cell should not be able to respond to relatively small changes in gravity given the magnitude of forces exerted by intracellular components, osteoblasts have been shown to respond to microgravity. In this study, we investigated whether an osteoblast can sense a constant hypergravity acceleration of 10G. We asked if this load changes the shape of an osteoblast, and if engineering modeling accurately predicts the shape change. We modeled a cell by representing it as a series of axisymmetric shell structures. To test this model empirically, we performed experiments with cultured osteoblasts to measure changes in cell shape resulting from hypergravity loading.