Fig. 3.

a Instantaneous profiles of a modelled cell with hyperelastic membranes (SK law with $C=10$) flowing through a constricted channel at $Ca=0.75$. b Cell deformation index as a function of the axial position of the cell mass centre. All three combinations of Ca and C can lead to good agreement in the steady DI of the cell in the narrow straight channel between numerical simulation (lines) and the experiment of Fregin et al (2019) (symbols). In the experiment, the cell reaches steady deformation at around $x=250\mathrm{\mu }$m. In simulations with the hyperelastic membrane model, steady deformation is reached earlier, before $x=200\mathrm{\mu }$m. c Comparison of the cell steady profiles of the three numerical simulations in (b) with the experiment when the cell mass centres are at $x=274\mathrm{\mu }$m. In c the scale bar represents 5 $\mathrm{\mu }$m