On the presence of affine fibril and fiber kinematics in the mitral valve anterior leaflet.

In this study, we evaluated the hypothesis that the constituent fibers follow an affine deformation kinematic model for planar collagenous tissues. Results from two experimental datasets were utilized, taken at two scales (nanometer and micrometer), using mitral valve anterior leaflet (MVAL) tissues as the representative tissue. We simulated MVAL collagen fiber network as an ensemble of undulated fibers under a generalized two-dimensional deformation state, by representing the collagen fibrils based on a planar sinusoidally shaped geometric model.