Building a 3D Virtual Liver: Methods for Simulating Blood Flow and Hepatic Clearance on 3D Structures

PLoS One. 2016 Sep 20;11(9):e0162215. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162215. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a spatio-temporal modeling approach to describe blood and drug flow, as well as drug uptake and elimination, on an approximation of the liver. Extending on previously developed computational approaches, we generate an approximation of a liver, which consists of a portal and hepatic vein vasculature structure, embedded in the surrounding liver tissue. The vasculature is generated via constrained constructive optimization, and then converted to a spatial grid of a selected grid size. Estimates for surrounding upscaled lobule tissue properties are then presented appropriate to the same grid size. Simulation of fluid flow and drug metabolism (hepatic clearance) are completed using discretized forms of the relevant convective-diffusive-reactive partial differential equations for these processes. This results in a single stage, uniformly consistent method to simulate equations for blood and drug flow, as well as drug metabolism, on a 3D structure representative of a liver.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Animals
  • Computer Simulation
  • Dogs
  • Hemodynamics
  • Humans
  • Liver / anatomy & histology
  • Liver / blood supply*
  • Liver / metabolism*
  • Liver Circulation*
  • Models, Anatomic
  • Models, Biological
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations / metabolism*

Substances

  • Pharmaceutical Preparations

Grants and funding

The computer Modelling Group Ltd. only provided financial support in the form of author salary (DC) and access to research material (STARS software package). The funder did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.