Piezoelectricity and flexoelectricity in biological cells: the role of cell structure and organelles

Living tissues experience various external forces on cells, influencing their behaviour, physiology, shape, gene expression, and destiny through interactions with their environment. Despite much research done in this area, challenges remain in our better understanding of the behaviour of the cell in response to external stimuli, including the arrangement, quantity, and shape of organelles within the cell. This study explores the electromechanical behaviour of biological cells, including organelles like microtubules, mitochondria, nuclei, and cell membranes. A two-dimensional bio-electromechanical model for two distinct cell structures has been developed to analyze the behavior of the biological cell to the external electrical and mechanical responses. The piezoelectric and flexoelectric effects have been included via multiphysics coupling for the biological cell. All the governing equations have been discretized and solved by the finite element method. It is found that the longitudinal stress is absent and only the transverse stress plays a crucial role when the mechanical load is imposed on the top side of the cell through compressive displacement. The impact of flexoelectricity is elucidated by introducing a new parameter called the maximum electric potential ratio ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mi>V</mml:mi> <mml:mrow><mml:mi>R</mml:mi> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mtext>max</mml:mtext></mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> ). It has been found that <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mi>V</mml:mi> <mml:mrow><mml:mi>R</mml:mi> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mtext>max</mml:mtext></mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> depends upon the orientation angle and shape of the microtubules. The magnitude of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mi>V</mml:mi> <mml:mrow><mml:mi>R</mml:mi> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mtext>max</mml:mtext></mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> exhibit huge change when we change the shape and orientation of the organelles, which in some cases (boundary condition (BC)-3) can reach to three times of regular shape organelles. Further, the study reveals that the number of microtubules significantly impacts effective elastic and piezoelectric coefficients, affecting cell behavior based on structure, microtubule orientation, and mechanical stress direction. The insight obtained from the current study can assist in advancements in medical therapies such as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.