Numerical simulations of elastic capsules with nucleus in shear flow

Abstract

The shear-induced deformation of a capsule with a stiff nucleus, a model of eukaryotic cells, is studied numerically. The membrane of the cell and of its nucleus are modelled as a thin and impermeable elastic material obeying a Neo-Hookean constitutive law. The membranes are discretised by a Lagrangian mesh and their governing equations are solved in spectral space using spherical harmonics, while the fluid equations are solved on a staggered grid using a second-order finite differences scheme. The fluid-structure coupling is obtained using an immersed boundary method. The numerical approach is presented and validated for the case of a single capsule in a shear flow. The variations induced by the presence of the nucleus on the cell deformation are investigated when varying the viscosity ratio between the inner and outer fluids, the membrane elasticity and its bending stiffness. The deformation of the eukaryotic cell is smaller than that of the prokaryotic one. The reduction in deformation increases for larger values of the capillary number. The eukaryotic cell remains thicker in its middle part compared to the prokaryotic one, thus making it less flexible to pass through narrow capillaries. For a viscosity ratio of 5, the deformation of the cell is smaller than in the case of uniform viscosity. In addition, for non-zero bending stiffness of the membrane, the deformation decreases and the shape is closer to an ellipsoid. Finally, we compare the results obtained modeling the nucleus as an inner stiffer membrane with those obtained using a rigid particle.