The Impact of Endothelial Cells Proliferation in a Multiscale Realistic Reproduction of Angiogenesis Publisher



Salavati H^{1, 2} ; Soltani M^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
Source: Biochemical Engineering Journal Published:2019

Abstract

Angiogenesis is a biological process in which new capillaries form from pre-existing vessels and it plays a key role in the several fatal diseases like cancer. Principally, the extension of angiogenic sprouts depends on migration and proliferation of endothelial cells (ECs). Multiple experimental and computational studies of angiogenesis have investigated the ECs dynamics so far, however, despite the importance of cellular proliferation, the biological details of ECs proliferation have not yet been fully modeled. In this work a proliferation model within a multi-scale mathematical framework accounts the ECs proliferation impacts on the sprouting angiogenesis. The model is a hybrid, which a lattice-based cellular Potts model reproduces the microenvironment dynamics and a partial differential equation evolves the growth factors diffusion into the extracellular matrix (ECM). Particularly, the results on sprout extension speeds illustrate that the proliferation model successfully simulates the angiogenesis more realistically. Also, results show that the model reproduces the sprouting pattern accurately, and it mimics primary events of the angiogenesis such as branching and anastomosis. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.