抄録
Mineralization is an essential function for life, and bone is one of the most important tissues for vertebrates. Elemental process of bone mineralization has been studied anatomically for long time. However, the elemental mechanism of bone formation, and mineralization process are still unknown. Because bone mineralization is the final product of cell proliferation, cell migration, cell differentiation, protein secretion, matrix construction, and tissue calcification; to clarify the bone formation mechanism, a dynamic approach through the use of anatomical knowledge seems necessary. In this study, we developed a computational model of in vitro bone mineralization of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and simulated the process of the bone tissue formation. MSCs have in vitro osteogenic differentiation capability, and the constructed in vitro bone tissue is very similar to the in vivo one. At first, we analyzed the spatial patterns of proliferation, osteogenic differentiation, and mineralization of MSCs. Then, we designed the computational model which consists of two steps, i.e. osteogenic differentiation and mineralization, with JAVA programming language according to the analyzed spatial pattern. We adjusted the simulation parameters by comparing with the in vitro process of bone tissue formation. These parameters are considered as important factors for understanding the dynamic formation pattern of bone tissue.
