Gracheva M.E., Toral R., Gunton J.D.
Lehigh University, US
Keywords: calcium waves, gap junctions, hepatocytes., intercellular, stochastic
We present results of a Monte Carlo simulation of stochastic effects for two models of intercellular calcium wave propagation in rat hepatocytes. Both models involve gap junction diffusion by a second messenger. In general taking into account the stochastic effects improves agreement with experiment. Both stochastic models exhibit baseline °uctuations and variations in the peak heights of Ca 2+. In addition, we find for one model that there is a distribution of latency times, rather than a single latency time, with a width which is comparable to the experimental observation of spike widths. We also ¯nd for the other model with low gap junction diffusion that it is possible for cell multiplets to oscillate independently initially, but to subsequently become synchronized.
Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: 2, Technical Proceedings of the 2001 International Conference on Computational Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Published: March 19, 2001
Pages: 9 - 12
Industry sector: Medical & Biotech
Topics: Biomaterials, Informatics, Modeling & Simulation
ISBN: 0-9708275-3-9