Functional elastic fibers decline with aging and sun exposure as a result of a combination of declined synthesis, faulty assembly, and increased degradation, leading to skin fragility, sagging, loss of elasticity, and wrinkles.
First, a general review concerning sensitivity analysis of the most usual functionals in elasticity is presented, based on the continuum approach.
Towards understanding how balancer proteins in their functional properties may impart elasticity to the proteomic system, we queried what kind of shared functional categories these proteins may possess (biological process and molecular function GO terms).
In support of this hypothesis, we found a strong association between extra- and intracellular elasticity and functional differentiation in MECs.
However, it needs to be mentioned that published results on substrate elasticity dependent functional and morphological adaptations of cardiomyocytes are inconsistent to some extent (Bajaj et al., 2010; Bhana et al., 2010; Engler et al., 2008; Jacot et al., 2008; Shi et al., 2011).
A multiscale model, combining elasticity and density functional theory, is applied to the interpretation of observations.
Larger scale atomistic simulations using an empirical potential confirm the findings of the elasticity and density functional theory model for swelling.
To incorporate the effects of small size into the local model, a size-dependent energy functional based on the nonlocal elasticity theory is developed.
It is tempting to speculate on any additional functional role of the observed elasticity, for example, to facilitate substrate secretion through a ratchet pump mechanism (Astumian, 2011).
