A Nonlinear Mechanic Model of a Zebrafish Embryo under Microinjection

Abstract

Cell microinjection has been widely used in medical and biological research because of its high transmission efficiency and low toxicity. The overlarge deformation of cells during microinjection is one important potential reason for its low survival rate after injection. Therefore, there are the existing studies that have tried to established linear mechanic deformation models of biological cells under microinjection. In this paper, based on electrothermally driven microclamps, a nonlinear viscoelastic model is established to estimate the deformation of a Zebrafish embryo clamped by a microgripper during microinjection. Firstly, a nonlinear viscoelastic model is proposed to describe the dynamic behavior with respect to injection speed, cell deformation, and puncture force of Zebrafish embryos during injection. Secondly, microinjection experiments of Zebrafish embryos are conducted to measure the injection force and deformation at different injection speeds. Finally, the parameters of the nonlinear viscoelastic model are identified with the experimental results, and the proposed model in this paper is compared with the existing linear model in terms of accuracy.