Modeling of light reflection from human skin
MEDICAL PHYSICS
Authors: Delgado, J. A.; Cornejo, A.; Rivas-Silva, J. F.; Rodriguez, E. E.
Abstract
In this work a two-layer model is used to simulate the spectral reflectance of adult human skin. We report and discuss diffuse reflectance spectra of this model for three values of the volume fraction of melanosomes fine, namely a) lightly pigmented skin fme = 4%, b) moderately pigmented skin fine = 14% and c) heavily pigmented skin fine = 30% at a volume fraction of blood fbl = 0.2%. We also considered the modeling of reflectance spectra for two values of fbl (0.2% and 1%) with fine = 4%. Both simulations were done in the 400-700 nm spectral range using the Monte Carlo simulation code MCML in standard C. Results showed that the principal signatures of human skin reflectance spectrum are obtained with this model and that it could be of valuable use to made predictions of diffuse reflectance of human skin for different values of the parameters related to skin characterization. These parameters can be associated to distinct medical conditions, such as erythema, jaundice, etc.
Investigating the functional implications of reinforcing feedback loops in transcriptional regulatory networks
MOLECULAR BIOSYSTEMS
Authors: Li, Yue; Liang, Cheng; Easterbrook, Steve; Luo, Jiawei; Zhang, Zhaolei
Abstract
Transcription factors (TFs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) can jointly regulate transcriptional networks in the form of recurrent circuits or motifs. A motif can be divided into a feedforward loop (FFL) and a feedback loop (FBL). Incoherent FFLs have been the recent focus due to their potential to dampen gene expression noise in maintaining physiological norms. However, a cell is not only able to manage noise but also able to exploit it during development or tumorigenesis to initiate radical transformation such as cell differentiation or metastasis. A plausible mechanism may involve reinforcing FBLs (rFBLs), which amplify changes to a sufficient level in order to complete the state transition. To study the behaviour of rFBLs, we developed a novel theoretical framework based on biochemical kinetics. The proposed rFBL follows a parsimonious design, involving two TFs and two miRNAs. A simulation study based on our model suggested that a system with rFBLs is robust to only a certain level of fluctuation but prone to a complete paradigm shift when the change exceeds a threshold level. To investigate the natural occurrence of rFBLs, we performed a rigorous network motif analysis using a recently available TF/miRNA regulatory network from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE). Our analysis suggested that the rFBL is significantly depleted in the observed network. Nonetheless, we identified 9 rFBL instances. Among them, we found a double-rFBL involving three TFs SUZ12/BCLAF1/ZBTB33 and three miRNAs miR-9/19a/129-5p, which together serve as an intriguing toggle switch between nerve development and telomere maintenance. Additionally, we investigated the interactions implicated in the rFBLs using expression profiles of cancer patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Together, we provided a novel and comprehensive view of the profound impacts of rFBLs and highlighted several TFs and miRNAs as the leverage points for potential therapeutic targets in cancers due to their eminent roles in the identified rFBLs.