Related papers: PAKing up to the endothelium
Signaling pathways serve to communicate information about extracellular conditions into the cell, to both the nucleus and cytoplasmic processes to control cell responses. Genetic mutations in signaling network components are frequently…
Hematopoiesis is the process of blood cell formation, through which progenitor stem cells differentiate into mature forms, such as white and red blood cells or mature platelets. While the precursors of the mature forms share many regulatory…
Atherosclerosis is a disease characterized by the development of atherosclerotic plaques (APs) in arterial endothelium. The APs in part of an arterial wall are inhomogeneous on size and on distribution. In order to understand this…
Cells use signalling pathways as windows into the environment to gather information, transduce it into their interior, and use it to drive behaviours. MAPK (ERK) is a highly conserved signalling pathway in eukaryotes, directing multiple…
Several studies suggest that one possible cause of impaired wound healing is failed or insufficient lymphangiogenesis, that is the formation of new lymphatic capillaries. Although many mathematical models have been developed to describe the…
Cancer invasion and metastasis depend on angiogenesis. The cellular processes (growth, migration, and apoptosis) that occur during angiogenesis are tightly regulated by signaling molecules. Thus, understanding how cells synthesize multiple…
Complex biological processes involve collective behavior of entities (bacteria, cells, animals) over many length and time scales and can be described by discrete models that track individuals or by continuum models involving densities and…
Angiogenesis is a multiscale process by which a primary blood vessel issues secondary vessel sprouts that reach regions lacking oxygen. Angiogenesis can be a natural process of organ growth and development or a pathological induced by a…
As one of the most prevalent diseases worldwide, plaque formation in human arteries, known as atherosclerosis, is the focus of many research efforts. Previously, molecular communication (MC) models have been proposed to capture and analyze…
A new approach to the modular, complex systems analysis of nonlinear dynamics in cell cycling network transformations involved in carcinogenesis is proposed. Carcinogenesis is a complex process that involves dynamically inter-connected…
We develop an agent-based model of vasculogenesis, the de novo formation of blood vessels. Endothelial cells in the vessel network are viewed as linearly elastic spheres and are of two types: vessel elements are contained within the…
Biological cells can actively tune their intracellular architecture according to their overall shape. Here we explore the rheological implication of such coupling in a minimal model of a dense cellular material where each cell exerts an…
Increase in vascular permeability occurs under many physiological conditions and is central in diverse human pathologies. Thrombin is a pro-coagulant serine protease, which causes the local loss of endothelial barrier integrity thereby…
There are a number of different stem cell sources that have the potential to be used as therapeutics in vascular degenerative diseases. On the one hand, there are so called endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), which are typically derived…
Recent experiments in epithelial wound healing have demonstrated the necessity of Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) for coordinated cell movement after damage. This MAPK activity is characterized by two wave-like phenomena. One MAPK…
Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways play an essential role in the transduction of environmental stimuli to the nucleus, thereby regulating a variety of cellular processes, including cell proliferation, differentiation…
We study a system of particles in a two-dimensional geometry that move according to a reinforced random walk with transition probabilities dependent on the solutions of reaction-diffusion equations for the underlying fields. A birth process…
In vitro cultures of endothelial cells are a widely used model system of the collective behavior of endothelial cells during vasculogenesis and angiogenesis. When seeded in an extracellular matrix, endothelial cells can form blood…
Endothelial cells release various vasorelaxing molecules, such as nitric oxide and prostacyclin, along with defined factors that induce hyperpolarization of vascular smooth muscle cells through the opening of calcium-sensitive potassium…
The small GTPases Rac and Rho are known to regulate eukaryotic cell shape, promoting front protrusion (Rac) or rear retraction (Rho) of the cell edge. Such cell deformation changes the contact and adhesion of cell to the extracellular…