Workshop on Pattern Formation and Functional Morphology, Tue, 08 Jan, 2008
Speaker: Markus Owen
Abstract
Vascular development and homeostasis are underpinned by two fundamental features:
the generation of new vessels to meet the metabolic demands of under-perfused regions and
the elimination of vessels that do not sustain flow. I will present a multiscale model
of vascular tissue growth that combines discrete cell population dynamics with blood flow, angiogenesis and vascular remodelling. Simulations show that vessel pruning is highly sensitive to the pressure drop across a vascular network, the degree of pruning increasing as the pressure drop increases. The level of blood oxygenation regulates the extent of angiogenesis, with higher oxygenation leading to fewer vessels. The initial vascular architecture can also affect its final density. Simulations that combine these features show that network remodelling is best achieved via an appropriate balance between pruning and angiogenesis.
When a cluster of tumour cells is introduced into normal tissue, as the tumour grows hypoxic regions form, producing high levels of VEGF that stimulate angiogenesis and cause the vascular density to exceed that for normal tissue. If the original vessel network is sufficiently sparse then the tumour may remain localised near its parent vessel until sufficient new vessels bridge the gap to an adjacent vessel. This can lead to metastable periods, during which the tumour burden is approximately constant, followed by periods of rapid growth.
URL: www.ricam.oeaw.ac.at/specsem/ssqbm/participants/abstracts/index.php
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