title: Epidermal homeostasis and radiation responses in a multiscale tissue modeling framework.
abstract: The surface of the skin is lined with several thin layers of epithelial cells that are maintained throughout a lifetime by a small population of stem cells. High dose radiation exposures could injure and deplete the underlying proliferative cells and induce cutaneous radiation syndrome. In this work we propose a multiscale computational model for skin epidermal dynamics that links phenomena occurring at the subcellular, cellular, and tissue levels of organization, to simulate the experimental data of the radiation response of swine epidermis, which is very similar to human epidermis. Incorporating experimentally measured histological and cell kinetic parameters, we obtain results of population kinetics and proliferation indices comparable to observations in unirradiated and acutely irradiated swine experiments. At the sub-cellular level, several recently published Wnt signaling controlled cell-cycle models are applied and the roles of key components and parameters are analyzed. This integrated model allows us to test the validity of several basic biological rules at the cellular level and sub-cellular mechanisms by qualitatively comparing simulation results with published research, and enhances our understanding of the pathophysiological effects of ionizing radiation on the skin.
authors.affiliation: Universities Space Research Association, Division of Space Life Sciences, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
authors.forename: Shaowen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Francis A
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Cucinotta
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002453:Cell Cycle / Q000502:physiology*; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000528:radiation effects*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D000078404:Epidermal Cells; D004817:Epidermis / Q000502:physiology*; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007700:Kinetics; D008954:Models, Biological; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D013552:Swine