Fractal geometry in mosaic organs: a new interpretation of mosaic pattern.
Fractal geometries have been widely observed in nature. The formulation of mathematical treatments of non-Euclidean geometry has generated models of highly complex natural phenomena. In the field of developmental biology, branching morphogenesis has been explained in terms of self-similar iterating branching rules that have done much toward explaining branch patterns observed in a range of real tissue. In solid viscera the problem is more complicated because there is no readily available marker of geometry in parenchymal tissue. Mosaic pattern provides such a marker. The patches observed in mosaic liver are shown to be fractal, indicating that the pattern may have arisen from a self-similar process (i.e., a process that creates an object in which small areas are representative of, although not necessarily identical to, the whole object). This observation offers a new analytical approach to the study of biologic structure in organogenesis.
Iannaccone
P M
PM
Northwestern University, Department of Pathology, Chicago, Illinois 60611.
D000818:Animals; D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D002678:Chimera / Q000502:physiology*; D015395:Histocompatibility Antigens Class I / Q000032:analysis; D008099:Liver / Q000196:embryology*; D009024:Morphogenesis / Q000502:physiology; D009030:Mosaicism / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats
D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D015395:Histocompatibility Antigens Class I