Dynamical systems approach to endothelial heterogeneity.
Endothelial cells display remarkable phenotypic heterogeneity. An important goal is to elucidate the scope and mechanisms of endothelial heterogeneity and to use this information to develop vascular bed-specific therapies. We reexamine our current understanding of the molecular basis of endothelial heterogeneity. We introduce multistability as a new explanatory framework in vascular biology. We draw on the field of nonlinear dynamics to propose a dynamical systems framework for modeling multistability and its derivative properties, including robustness, memory, and plasticity. Our perspective allows for both a conceptual and quantitative description of system-level features of endothelial regulation.
Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. eregan@bidmc.harvard.edu
Erzsébet Ravasz
ER
Regan
William C
WC
Aird
D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010641:Phenotype; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000235:genetics