Taggart, Michael John, Blanks, Andrew M., Kharche, Sanjay , Holden, Arun, Wang, Bin and Zhang, Henggui . (2007) Towards understanding the myometrial physiome: approaches for the construction of a virtual physiological uterus. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, Vol.7 (No.1). ISSN 1471-2393

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Abstract

Premature labour (PTL) is the single most significant factor contributing to neonatal morbidity in Europe with enormous attendant healthcare and social costs. Consequently, it remains a major challenge to alleviate the cause and impact of this condition. Our ability to improve the diagnosis and treatment of women most at risk of PTL is, however, actually hampered by an incomplete understanding of the ways in which the functions of the uterine myocyte are integrated to effect an appropriate biological response at the multicellular whole organ system. The level of organization required to co-ordinate labouring uterine contractile effort in time and space can be considered immense. There is a multitude of what might be considered mini-systems involved, each with their own regulatory feedback cycles, yet they each, in turn, will influence the behaviour of a related system. These include, but are not exclusive to, gestational-dependent regulation of transcription, translation, post-translational modifications, intracellular signaling dynamics, cell morphology, intercellular communication and tissue level morphology. We propose that in order to comprehend how these mini-systems integrate to facilitate uterine contraction during labour (preterm or term) we must, in concert with biological experimentation, construct detailed mathematical descriptions of our findings. This serves three purposes: firstly, providing a quantitative description of series of complex observations; secondly, proferring a database platform that informs further testable experimentation; thirdly, advancing towards the establishment of a virtual physiological uterus and in silico clinical diagnosis and treatment of PTL.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	R Medicine > RG Gynecology and obstetrics
Divisions:	Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School > Clinical Sciences Research Institute (CSRI) Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Labor (Obstetrics), Mathematical models
Journal or Publication Title:	BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
Publisher:	BioMed Central Ltd.
ISSN:	1471-2393
Date:	1 June 2007
Volume:	Vol.7
Number:	No.1
Identification Number:	10.1186/1471-2393-7-S1-S3
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Action Medical Research (AMR), Wellcome Trust (London, England), European Union (EU), Ferring, Serono, Perkin Elmer
Grant number:	LSHB-CT-2004-503243 (EU)
Version or Related Resource:	Published as part of BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 7 (1), 2007: Proceedings of the First and Second European Workshops on Preterm Labour of the Special Non-Invasive Advances in Fetal and Neonatal Evaluation (SAFE) Network of Excellence.
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/565

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