COMPUTER MODELS
Building better barriers for seeping cells
An innovative computer model can simulate how the walls of blood vessels react to mechanical forces. This can help us to achieve a better understanding of many diseases.
The cell walls in a computer model of our blood vessels. | Image: R. Jakob et al. (2024)
The circulation of our blood is like a roaring river, pulsating to the rhythm of our heartbeat. The pressure of our bloodstream is constantly changing, and our blood vessels expand as the flow of blood chafes against their walls. These vessels are lined with a tight layer of so-called ‘endothelial cells’ that have to withstand these forces. They are the first barrier between our blood and our tissue. An interdisciplinary team at Empa (the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) has now developed a computer model to simulate this cell layer.
If the pressure in the blood vessels rises too much, defects can form in this barrier that can then trigger cardiovascular diseases, for example. The better we understand this layer of cells, the better the therapies that we can develop to protect them. For this model, researchers applied algorithms to existing measurements to simulate how the endothelial layer reacts to mechanical forces.
To this end, they mapped the interactions among the fibres that act like a stabilising scaffold inside the cells. “These fibres in the cells form a network that is connected to the tissue underneath”, says group leader Alexander Ehret. They tested the accuracy of their predictions by means of laboratory data in which they subjected the endothelium to mechanical stress.
The biologist Costanza Giampietro sees great potential in this: “We can use this model to test hypotheses and then investigate the most promising one in the laboratory”. She hopes that this model might benefit cancer research, for example, by helping us to understand how metastasising cells penetrate the vascular barrier.
