Department of Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Computational Nano-Bioelectromagnetics Research Group, School of Nano-Science, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, Iran.
Comput Biol Med. 2018 Jun 1;97:50-62. doi: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2018.04.006. Epub 2018 Apr 12.
In many cellular networks, the structure of the network follows a scale-free organization, where a limited number of cells are strongly coupled to other cells. These cells are called hub cells and their critical roles are well accepted. Despite their importance, there have been only a few studies investigating the characteristic features of these cells. In this paper, a computational approach is proposed to study the possible role of different ion channels in distinguishing between the hub and non-hub cells. The results show that the P/Q-type and T-type calcium channels may have an especial role in the β-cell hubs because the high-level expressions of these channels make a pancreatic β-cell more potent to force other coupled cells to follow it. In addition, in order to consider the variation of the coupling strength with voltage, a novel mathematical model is proposed for the gap junction coupling between the pancreatic β-cells. The proposed approach is validated based on the data from the literature.
在许多细胞网络中，网络的结构遵循无标度组织，其中少数细胞与其他细胞强烈耦合。这些细胞被称为枢纽细胞，它们的关键作用已被广泛接受。尽管它们很重要，但只有少数研究调查了这些细胞的特征。在本文中，提出了一种计算方法来研究不同离子通道在区分枢纽细胞和非枢纽细胞中的可能作用。结果表明，P/Q 型和 T 型钙通道在β细胞枢纽中可能具有特殊作用，因为这些通道的高表达使胰腺β细胞更有能力迫使其他耦合细胞跟随它。此外，为了考虑耦合强度随电压的变化，提出了一种新的数学模型来描述胰腺β细胞之间的缝隙连接耦合。所提出的方法基于文献中的数据进行了验证。
