With urticaria, rashes (wheals) of various shapes and sizes appear depending on the type of disease and individual patients.The common feature is that swelling accompanied by redness of the skin appears and disappears in a short time, but it takes the shape of insect bites, rings, petals, or lines, and is about the size of a miliary tuberculosis to the size of a palm. It is as diverse as it is.
Until now, it was not well understood why and how the various forms were formed.
On the other hand, the "reaction-diffusion model", which is a mathematical method, can explain the mechanism in which a reaction that occurs in some part causes the next reaction and it diffuses one after another.It is known that the wheal observed in urticaria is formed by the action of histamine released from skin mast cells on blood vessels regardless of the disease type. We decided to analyze the shape and its changes using a reaction diffusion model.
The researchers have succeeded in reproducing the various geometrical forms of wheals found in urticaria with mathematical models.Moreover, when the model was analyzed, it was found that the formation of wheal involves not only the conventionally considered action of histamine (positive action) but also the inhibitory action (negative action) that counteracts it. It was predicted.
If the molecules and mechanisms of the inhibitory system predicted from mathematical models are identified by biological methods, the pathophysiology of urticaria will be better understood, and by extension, new disease type classification and treatment methods will be established based on morphological analysis of wheals. May lead to.In addition, for skin diseases other than urticaria in which a characteristic rash appears, new possibilities may be opened through mathematical analysis using a mathematical model.
Paper information:[PLOS Computational Biology] A Single Reaction-Diffusion Equation for the Multifarious Eruptions of Urticaria
