An anatomically informed computational fluid dynamics modeling approach for quantifying hemodynamics in the developing heart.

Congenital heart defects occur in approximately 1% of newborns in the US annually. Currently, less than a third of congenital heart defects can be traced to a known genetic or environmental cause, suggesting that a large proportion of disease-causing mechanisms have yet to be fully characterized. He...

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Main Authors: Kirsten Giesbrecht, Simone Rossi, Sophie Liu, Shourya Mukherjee, Michael Bressan, Boyce E Griffith
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2025-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322233
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author Kirsten Giesbrecht
Simone Rossi
Sophie Liu
Shourya Mukherjee
Michael Bressan
Boyce E Griffith
author_facet Kirsten Giesbrecht
Simone Rossi
Sophie Liu
Shourya Mukherjee
Michael Bressan
Boyce E Griffith
author_sort Kirsten Giesbrecht
collection DOAJ
description Congenital heart defects occur in approximately 1% of newborns in the US annually. Currently, less than a third of congenital heart defects can be traced to a known genetic or environmental cause, suggesting that a large proportion of disease-causing mechanisms have yet to be fully characterized. Hemodynamic forces such as wall shear stress are critical for heart development and are known to induce changes in embryonic cardiac patterning leading to malformations. However, measuring these hemodynamic factors in vivo is infeasible due to physical limitations, such as the small size and constant motion of the embryonic heart. This serves as a significant barrier towards developing a mechanics-based understanding of the origins of congenital heart defects. An alternative approach is to recapitulate the hemodynamic environment by simulating blood flow and calculating the resulting hemodynamic forces through computational fluid dynamics modeling. Thus, we have developed a robust computational fluid dynamics modeling pipeline to quantify hemodynamics within cell-accurate anatomies of embryonic chick hearts. Here we describe the implementation of single plane illumination light sheet fluorescent microscopy to generate full three-dimensional reconstructions of the embryonic heart in silico, quantitative geometric morphometric methods for identifying anatomic variability across samples, and computational fluid dynamic approaches for calculating flow, pressure, and wall shear stress within complex tissue architectures. Together, these methods produce a fast, robust, and accessible system of analysis for generating high-resolution, quantitative descriptions of anatomical variability and hemodynamic forces in the embryonic heart.
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spelling doaj-art-1820a724fdce4205b4741fd9c703bc8e2025-08-20T03:14:02ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01205e032223310.1371/journal.pone.0322233An anatomically informed computational fluid dynamics modeling approach for quantifying hemodynamics in the developing heart.Kirsten GiesbrechtSimone RossiSophie LiuShourya MukherjeeMichael BressanBoyce E GriffithCongenital heart defects occur in approximately 1% of newborns in the US annually. Currently, less than a third of congenital heart defects can be traced to a known genetic or environmental cause, suggesting that a large proportion of disease-causing mechanisms have yet to be fully characterized. Hemodynamic forces such as wall shear stress are critical for heart development and are known to induce changes in embryonic cardiac patterning leading to malformations. However, measuring these hemodynamic factors in vivo is infeasible due to physical limitations, such as the small size and constant motion of the embryonic heart. This serves as a significant barrier towards developing a mechanics-based understanding of the origins of congenital heart defects. An alternative approach is to recapitulate the hemodynamic environment by simulating blood flow and calculating the resulting hemodynamic forces through computational fluid dynamics modeling. Thus, we have developed a robust computational fluid dynamics modeling pipeline to quantify hemodynamics within cell-accurate anatomies of embryonic chick hearts. Here we describe the implementation of single plane illumination light sheet fluorescent microscopy to generate full three-dimensional reconstructions of the embryonic heart in silico, quantitative geometric morphometric methods for identifying anatomic variability across samples, and computational fluid dynamic approaches for calculating flow, pressure, and wall shear stress within complex tissue architectures. Together, these methods produce a fast, robust, and accessible system of analysis for generating high-resolution, quantitative descriptions of anatomical variability and hemodynamic forces in the embryonic heart.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322233
spellingShingle Kirsten Giesbrecht
Simone Rossi
Sophie Liu
Shourya Mukherjee
Michael Bressan
Boyce E Griffith
An anatomically informed computational fluid dynamics modeling approach for quantifying hemodynamics in the developing heart.
PLoS ONE
title An anatomically informed computational fluid dynamics modeling approach for quantifying hemodynamics in the developing heart.
title_full An anatomically informed computational fluid dynamics modeling approach for quantifying hemodynamics in the developing heart.
title_fullStr An anatomically informed computational fluid dynamics modeling approach for quantifying hemodynamics in the developing heart.
title_full_unstemmed An anatomically informed computational fluid dynamics modeling approach for quantifying hemodynamics in the developing heart.
title_short An anatomically informed computational fluid dynamics modeling approach for quantifying hemodynamics in the developing heart.
title_sort anatomically informed computational fluid dynamics modeling approach for quantifying hemodynamics in the developing heart
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322233
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