Probing complex biological systems with simple chemistry

摘要

A simplified chemical model helps elucidate the spatiotemporal dynamics of blood clotting. Hemostasis, the process of blood clotting, plays a critical role in everything from healing a simple cut to causing life-threatening strokes. But the complex cascade of approx80 individual chemical reactions, with extensive positive and negative feedback controls and nonlinear dynamics, has been difficult to model mathematically. Rustem Ismagilov and colleagues at the University of Chicago previously developed a simplified chemical model that simulated the spatiotemporal dynamics of hemostasis (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2004, 43, 1532-1536). Now, by using the chemical model and analyzing blood clotting in a microfluidic device, they've demonstrated that the model system can be used to predict clotting-initiation dynamics, including identification of a spatial threshold response that may have applications in medical diagnostics and treatment (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2006, 103, 15,747-15,752).