Abstract

We introduce a mathematical model for the mechanical behaviour of the eukaryotic cell cytoskeleton. This discrete model involves a regular array of pre-stressed protein filaments that exhibit resistance to enthalpic stretching, joined at cross-links to form a network. Assuming that the inter-cross-link distance is much shorter than the length scale of the cell, we upscale the discrete force balance to form a continuum system of governing equations and deduce the corresponding macroscopic stress tensor. We use these discrete and continuum models to analyse the imposed displacement of a bead placed in the domain, characterizing the cell rheology through the force–displacement curve. We further derive an analytical approximation to the stress and strain fields in the limit of small bead radius, predicting the net force required to generate a given deformation and elucidating the dependency on the microscale properties of the filaments. We apply these models to networks of the intermediate filament vimentin and demonstrate good agreement between predictions of the discrete, continuum and analytical approaches. In particular, our model predicts that the network stiffness increases sublinearly with the filament pre-stress and scales logarithmically with the bead size.