Reduction of order for uterine smooth muscle cell model: Relevance and Reproducability

Shawn Means

University of Auckland

"Reduction of order for uterine smooth muscle cell model: Relevance and Reproducability"

We apply a reduction method to a published uterine smooth muscle cell (uSMC) by Tong, et al. 2011, using both a representative ion channel and steady-state approximation approach. Although an extensive catalogue of potassium channels are known to reside in the uSMC, we hypothesise not all are functionally relevant to reproduce the data given. Further, the Tong model incorporates a vast range of time scales for the Hodgkin-Huxley type activation and inactivataion variables ranging over six orders of magnitude. We demonstrate effective use of a reduced suite of potassium channels and deployment of steady-state approximations that not only reproduces the same data set as the Tong model but additional data a later expanded Tong model with even more potassium channels. Moreover, our reduced model increases computational performance by 200%.
Additional authors: Prof. Alys Clark, Prof. Leo Cheng, Dr. Amy Garrett and Mr. Mathias Roesler, University of Auckland Bioengineering Group

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