Vico P G, Kyriacos S, Heymans O, Louryan S, Cartilier L
Département de Chirurgie, Institut Jules Bordet and Laboratoire d'Oncologie et de Chirurgie Expérimentale, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
J Theor Biol. 1998 Dec 21;195(4):525-32. doi: 10.1006/jtbi.1998.0810.
Fractal analysis is widely used in many scientific fields, including the study of vascularization. It is a convenient method that defines the complexity of natural structures. The chorioallantoic membrane of the chick embryo is a standard experimental model for the study of vasculogenesis and angiogenesis. The aim of this investigation was to demonstrate that fractal geometry is more appropriate than any other method to describe and analyse the evolution of a vascular network, i.e. the extraembryonar vascular network of the chick embryo. We used an original methodology to evaluate the complexity of this network in the first stages of embryo development (day 3 until 6). We demonstrated an increase of fractal dimension, indicating an increasing complexity of the vascular tree, until an asymptotical value of about 1.70 at day 4. The fractal approach is more accurate than other usual semi-quantitative or quantitative methods evaluating the complexity of a growing vascular tree.
分形分析在包括血管生成研究在内的许多科学领域中被广泛应用。它是一种定义自然结构复杂性的便捷方法。鸡胚的绒毛尿囊膜是研究血管发生和血管生成的标准实验模型。本研究的目的是证明分形几何学比任何其他方法更适合描述和分析血管网络的演变，即鸡胚的胚外血管网络。我们使用了一种原始方法来评估胚胎发育早期阶段（第3天至第6天）该网络的复杂性。我们证明了分形维数的增加，表明血管树的复杂性不断增加，直到第4天达到约1.70的渐近值。分形方法比其他评估生长中血管树复杂性的常用半定量或定量方法更准确。
