Simulation of Molecular Signaling in Blood Vessels: Software Design and Application to Atherogenesis

TL;DR

This paper introduces BiNS2, a sophisticated software platform for simulating molecular communication within blood vessels, and applies it to analyze the initial stages of atherogenesis caused by platelet-endothelium signaling.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed description of the BiNS2 simulator's design, innovations, and optimizations, and demonstrates its application to model and analyze blood vessel molecular signaling involved in atherogenesis.

Findings

BiNS2 effectively simulates molecular diffusion and communication in blood vessels.

The simulation reveals how signal parameters affect vessel wall footprint and latency.

Insights into platelet-endothelium signaling dynamics in atherogenesis.

Abstract

This paper presents a software platform, named BiNS2, able to simulate diffusion-based molecular communications with drift inside blood vessels. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First a detailed description of the simulator is given, under the software engineering point of view, by highlighting the innovations and optimizations introduced. Their introduction into the previous version of the BiNS simulator was needed to provide to functions for simulating molecular signaling and communication potentials inside bounded spaces. The second contribution consists of the analysis, carried out by using BiNS2, of a specific communication process happening inside blood vessels, the atherogenesis, which is the initial phase of the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, due to the abnormal signaling between platelets and endothelium. From a communication point of view, platelets act as mobile transmitters, endothelial cells are fixed receivers, sticky to the vessel walls, and the transmitted signal is made of bursts of molecules emitted by platelets. The simulator allows evaluating the channel latency and the footprint on the vessel wall of the transmitted signal as a function of the transmitter distance from the vessels wall, the signal strength, and the receiver sensitivity.