Fractal cell volume regulation

H. A. ALVAREZ; C MANUEL CARLEVARO; P. L. SCHWARZBAUM; O. CHARA

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; Latin American Conference on Mathematical Modeling of Biological Systems; 2015

Cellular volume in tightly regulated in the animal kingdom: cell exposure to a hypotonic or hypertonic media induces an osmotic cell change followed by a cell volume regulatory response,known as Regulatory Volume Decrease (RVD) or Regulatory Volume Increase (RVI) process, respectively. It has been proposed that this regulatory response would be based on the existence of a mechanical sensor by which the cell would continuously monitor its volume. It has been conceived that this mechanical sensor could be associated with membrane-located mechano-sensitive ion channels, cytosolic molecular crowding or even the cytosqueleton. We developed a mathematical model assuming a mechanical sensor of fractal dimension which contemplates these mechanisms. The model is composed by a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) describing a generalization of previous models. By constraining the model with experimental information of typical conditions of RVD and RVI assays, the model is able to quantitatively and quantitatively reproduce the phenomenology of regulatory response. Furthermore, the model predicts a not yet observed oscillatory behavior which can be explained by stability analysis.