Towards a unified approach in the modeling of fibrosis: A review with research perspectives

Abstract

Pathological fibrosis is the result of a failure in the wound healing process. The comprehension and the related modeling of the different mechanisms that trigger fibrosis is a challenge of many researchers that work in the field of medicine and biology. The modern scientific analysis of a phenomenon generally consists of three major approaches: theoretical, experimental, and computational. Different theoretical tools coming from mathematics and physics have been proposed for the modeling of the physiological and pathological fibrosis. However a complete framework is missing and the development of a general theory is required. This review aims at finding a unified approach in the modeling of fibrosis diseases that takes into account the different phenomena occurring at each level: molecular, cellular and tissue. Specifically by means of a critical analysis of the different models that have been proposed in the mathematical, computational and physical biology, from molecular to tissue scales, a multiscale approach is proposed, an approach that has been strongly recommended by top level biologists in the past decades.

Involvement of eIF6 in external mechanical stretch–mediated murine dermal fibroblast function via TGF-β1 pathway

“…The development of fibrosis presents a great challenge to researchers202122. The control of fibrosis remains elusive, although some progress has been made232425.…”

Multiscale modeling of fibrosis – What's next? Reply to Comments on “Towards a unified approach in the modeling of fibrosis: A review with research perspective” by Martine Ben Amar and Carlo Bianca

“…As discussed in the review paper [1], ODE-based models are employed for studying the time evolution of the density of the cell populations of the system under consideration; PDE-based models deal with the evolution of systems with an internal structure or a space structure; kinetic theory models are concerned with the modeling of interactions among the entities; continuum mechanics approach is based on the fluid-assumption of the system. Each framework is suitable for the modeling of the complex system depending on what is needed to model.…”

“…The commentary articles by Aty [2] and Pappalardo et al [13] focus on the applicability of the agent-based model (ABM) for the analysis of fibrosis diseases. The authors stress the capability of the ABM to be able to link the mesoscopic scale and the macroscopic scale and also mimic features at the molecular level, such as the presence of cellular receptors and receptor recognition mechanisms, see [24,25].…”

“…Indeed their critical analysis have allowed to improve the review paper [1]. The raised issues have suggested a further analysis and bibliography investigation that have made the tools of the review paper [1] more comprehensive and applicable.…”

“…Moreover a close examination about the raised open problems is considered. Finally the study of the transport properties in fibrosis is also discussed, a very interesting topic that has been mentioned in the review [1].…”