Human prostatic tissue exhibits complex mechanical behaviour due to its multiphasic, heterogeneous nature, with hierarchical microstructures involving epithelial compartments, acinar lumens and stromal tissue all interconnected in complex networks. This study aims to establish a computational homogenization framework for quantifying the mechanical behaviour of prostate tissue, considering its multiphasic heterogeneous microstructures and the mechanical characteristics of tissue constituents. Representative tissue microstructure models were reconstructed from high-resolution histology images. Parametric studies on the mechanical properties of the tissue constituents, particularly the fibre-reinforced hyper-elasticity of the stromal tissue, were carried out to investigate their effects on the apparent tissue properties. These were then benchmarked against the experimental data reported in literature. Results showed significant anisotropy, both structural and mechanical, and tension-compression asymmetry of the apparent behaviours of the prostatic tissue. Strong correlation with the key microstructural indices such as area fractions of tissue constituents and the tissue fabric tensor was also observed. The correlation between the stromal tissue orientation and the principal directions of the apparent properties suggested an essential role of stromal tissue in determining the directions of anisotropy and the compression-tension asymmetry characteristics in normal human prostatic tissue. This work presented a homogenization and histology-based computational approach to characterize the apparent mechanical behaviours of human prostatic or other similar glandular tissues, with the ultimate aim of assessing how pathological conditions (e.g., prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia) could affect the tissue mechanical properties in a future study.

中文翻译：

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人类前列腺组织组织学微观结构的计算均质化：异质性、各向异性和拉压不对称性

人类前列腺组织由于其多相、异质性质而表现出复杂的机械行为，其分层微观结构涉及上皮区室、腺泡腔和基质组织，所有这些都在复杂的网络中相互连接。本研究旨在建立一个计算均质化框架，用于量化前列腺组织的机械行为，考虑其多相异质微观结构和组织成分的机械特性。代表性的组织微观结构模型是根据高分辨率组织学图像重建的。对组织成分的机械性能，特别是基质组织的纤维增强超弹性进行参数化研究，以研究它们对表观组织性能的影响。然后将这些数据与文献中报告的实验数据进行基准比较。结果显示，前列腺组织的表观行为具有显着的结构和机械各向异性以及拉压不对称性。还观察到与关键微观结构指数（例如组织成分的面积分数和组织织物张量）的强相关性。基质组织取向和表观特性的主方向之间的相关性表明基质组织在确定正常人前列腺组织中的各向异性方向和压缩-张力不对称特征中的重要作用。这项工作提出了一种基于均质化和组织学的计算方法来表征人类前列腺或其他类似腺体组织的表观机械行为，最终目的是评估病理条件（例如前列腺癌和良性前列腺增生）如何影响组织机械行为未来研究中的属性。