Penetrating the ultra-tough yeast cell wall with finite element analysis model-aided design of microtools

Summary: Microinjecting yeast cells has been challenging for decades with no significant breakthrough due to the ultra-tough cell wall and low stiffness of the traditional injector tip at the micro-scale. Penetrating this protection wall is the key step for artificially bringing foreign substance in...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yanfei Zhang, Wende He, Li Wang, Weiguang Su, Hao Chen, Anqing Li, Jun Chen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2024-04-01
Series:iScience
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004224007247
Description
Summary:Summary: Microinjecting yeast cells has been challenging for decades with no significant breakthrough due to the ultra-tough cell wall and low stiffness of the traditional injector tip at the micro-scale. Penetrating this protection wall is the key step for artificially bringing foreign substance into the yeast. In this paper, a yeast cell model was built by using finite element analysis (FEA) method to analyze the penetrating process. The key parameters of the yeast cell wall in the model (the Young’s modulus, the shear modulus, and the Lame constant) were calibrated according to a general nanoindentation experiment. Then by employing the calibrated model, the injection parameters were optimized to minimize the cell damage (the maximum cell deformation at the critical stress of the cell wall). Key guidelines were suggested for penetrating the cell wall during microinjection.
ISSN:2589-0042