Key result
T-tubule distribution and boundary constraints alter cardiomyocyte calcium dynamics and shortening in computational models.
Why the study?
Heart failure is a condition highly related to cardiomyocyte function and calcium concentration affecting contractile activity, with no effective cure, motivating the development of a mathematical model to understand cardiac cell biochemistry and biomechanics.
A finite element mathematical model can faithfully simulate cardiomyocyte calcium flux and contractile activity, providing a computational tool to study cellular biomechanics in conditions like heart failure.
May enable in silico testing of cardiomyocyte calcium dynamics; leaves open validation in human heart failure models.
We present and study a mathematical model to simulate the calcium flux and contractile activity of the cardiomyocyte, resorting on the Finite Element Method. This Model of cardiac cells provide the possibility to understand thebiochemistry and biomechanics of cardiac cells and cardiovascular diseases. Heart Failure is considered the ultimate cardiac disease, a condition with no effective cure which is highly related with the function of cardiomyocytes and consequently with the concentration of calcium, affecting the contractile activity of the cardiomyocyte.In order to test our model’s performance, several tests were applied varying the local active cellular tension driven by the intracellular calcium concentration and the localization of the main calcium influx. The results are expressed in the graphics of calcium concentration over time, maximum cardiomyocyte contraction and the gradient of calcium diffusion.Our results show that the behaviour of our models is faithful to what is known to be true with cell’s physiology andpathological conditions.
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Rodrigues et al. (2019) studied this question. Finite Element Method simulation was evaluated on Calcium concentration and percentage of shortening. A finite element method simulation of isolated cardiomyocytes demonstrated that T-tubule distribution and the availability of free sides for contraction significantly influence calcium concentration and cell shortening.
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