Computational model of collagen turnover in carotid arteries during hypertension

Abstract

SUMMARYIt is well known that biological tissues adapt their properties due to different mechanical and chemical stimuli. The goal of this work is the study of the collagen turnover in the arterial tissue of hypertensive patients through a coupled computational mechano-chemical model. Although it has been widely studied experimentally, computational models dealing with the mechano-chemical approach are not. The present approach can be extended easily to study other aspects of bone remodeling or collagen degradation in heart diseases. The model can be divided into three different stages. First, we study the smooth muscle cell synthesis of different biological substances due to the over-stretching during hypertension. Next, we study the mass-transport of these substances along the arterial wall. The last step is to compute the turnover of collagen based on the amount of these substances in the arterial wall which interact with each other to modify the turnover rate of collagen. We simulate this process in a finite element model of a real human carotid artery. The final results show the well known stiffening of the arterial wall due to the increase in the collagen content.

Multiscale characterization of the mechanics of curved fibered structures with application to biological materials

“…Using the decomposition of the nodal forces vector (13) in (18), the incremental stress tensor can be obtained as:…”

“…Phenomenological models are ad hoc models that fit fibril rigidization stress-strain curves considering exponential, polynomial or logarithmic functions [15,16]. In this modeling strategy, a strain energy density function is deployed to express the mechanical property of individual fibers and correlations with experimental results are needed to fit the model parameters [17][18][19][20][21]. Although phenomenological models predict the behavior of the fibers accurately, they do not account for any structural information.…”

Aging and computational systems biology

“…Multilevel aging‐based models have also been used to gain an insight into intracellular protein aggregate damage, during aging in Escherichia coli . Moreover, multiscale models have also had a mammalian focus, e.g., to examine collagen turnover and the adaptive nature of arterial tissue, in response to mechanical and chemical stimuli . Furthermore, this type of modeling has also been utilized to examine disease pathophysiology, such as the muscle fiber arrangement and damage susceptibility in Duchenne muscular dystrophy …”