Mathematical modelling of growth control in Drosophila development

果蝇发育中生长控制的数学模型

• 批准号: G0802456/1
• 负责人: Yanlan Mao
• 金额: $ 24.69万
• 依托单位: CANCER RESEARCH UK
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2009 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=G0802456%2F1
• 关键词: Mathematical; modelling; growth; control; Drosophila

Have you ever wondered why your hands are the size they are? Or why some people have bigger hands, but they are almost identical in shape and proportion to your hands? The control of organ growth is highly complex, but highly important, as when the control system fails, we get overgrowth, and frequently cancer. How does the organ know when to stop growing? How does it control its shape? If we can understand this, perhaps we will be able to understand what happens when tissues over grow, and treat the problem (e.g. cancer) at its source. Many biologists have successfully used the Drosophila wing as a model to study growth control, revealing many parallels to human growth control. I hope to put all these data, the pieces of a puzzle, together, into a mathematical/computer model and eventually make a virtual wing. I‘ll be able to compare the relative importance of the different control mechanisms, something that‘s quite hard to do via experiments. I may find that internal control is key, and the environment plays little role, or vice versa. I can also model different cancerous conditions, and quickly test treatments before deciding whether they are worth trying experimentally/clinically.

你有没有想过为什么你的手是他们的大小？或者为什么有些人有更大的手，但他们几乎是相同的形状和比例，你的手？器官生长的控制非常复杂，但非常重要，因为当控制系统失败时，我们就会过度生长，通常会导致癌症。器官如何知道何时停止生长？它是如何控制自己的形状的？如果我们能够理解这一点，也许我们将能够理解当组织过度生长时会发生什么，并从源头上治疗问题（例如癌症）。许多生物学家已经成功地利用果蝇翅膀作为模型来研究生长控制，揭示了许多与人类生长控制相似的地方。我希望把所有这些数据，拼图的碎片，放在一起，进入一个数学/计算机模型，并最终作出一个虚拟的翅膀。我将能够比较不同控制机制的相对重要性，这是通过实验很难做到的。我可能会发现，内部控制是关键，环境起的作用很小，反之亦然。我还可以对不同的癌症状况进行建模，并快速测试治疗方法，然后决定它们是否值得在实验/临床上尝试。