Popis: |
This paper aims to capture the behavior of the bone gene regulation network (GRN) portion that controls mineralization according to stiffness. We hypothesized that the epistatic genetic interactions follow a system of nonlinear differential equations. To test our hypothesis, we (i) adapted our previously published model from being continuously time-dependent to continuously stiffness-dependent, (ii) performed in-vitro experiments culturing bone cells on different stiffness, and (iii) optimized our model based on the experimental results. Our results showed that (i) we exhibited a continuous variation of stiffness that allowed us to simulate bone GRN gene expression, and (ii) we qualitatively validated our approach against a novel set of experimental data. Thus, we depict novel mathematical solutions that predict the bone GRN expression regarding stiffness. Therefore, we propose a model of how mechanotransduction controls the epistatic genetic interactions that govern mineralization. Our novel algorithm can predict Bone protein production or matrix stiffness with only one input. |