Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting - June 28-July 1, 2015

New Biological Frontiers Illuminated by Molecular Sensors and Actuators

Poster Abstracts

13-POS Board 13 Radiation-Induced Micronucleus in a Multi-Scale Tissue Modeling Framework Shaowen Hu , Ianik Plante. Wyle Science, Technology and Engineering, Houston, USA. The surface of skin is lined with several thin layers of epithelial cells that are maintained throughout life time by a small population of stem cells. Ionizing radiation exposures could injure the underlying proliferative cells and induce genomic instability that is correlated with cancer risk. In this work a multi-scale computational model for skin epidermal dynamics that links phenomena occurring at the subcellular, cellular, and tissue levels of organization is applied to simulate the experimental data of cytokinesis-block micronucleus (CBMN) assay in 2 types of 3D in vitro human epidermal tissues. This multi-scale model has been used to simulate the population kinetics and proliferation indexes observed in irradiated swine epidermis, which highlights the importance of considering proliferation kinetics as well as the spatial organization of tissues when conducting investigations of radiation responses. At the subcellular level, several recently published Wnt signaling controlled cell-cycle models are applied, allowing testing of validity of some basic biological rules at the cellular and sub-cellular levels by qualitatively comparing simulation results with published data. We will present results of simulation of skin responses of CBMN to conventional photon techniques as well as highly charged and energetic (HZE) particles used in new Hadron therapy. Combining with the radiation track structure simulated with software RITRACK, this approach could illuminate the roles of various physical, chemical, and biological interactions in determining the relative biological effects of the HZE particles to induce genomic instability. This integrated model will provide a versatile platform to investigate various radiation altered physical, chemical, and biological interactions in different time and spatial scales, which could enhance our understanding of the pathophysiological effects of ionizing radiation on the skin for patients undergoing radiotherapy.

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