Ilya

Korsunsky COB colloquium response paper 1/29/13 Jay Humphrey The speaker today does work on the mechanical properties of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms (AAAs). In this disease, the abdominal part of the aorta breaks down structurally and becomes spherical, rather than cylindrical. This decreases the efficiency with which blood flows through the aorta and thus hampers effective circulation throughout the whole body. Specifically, he was interested in the mechanical properties of the arterial wall, which consists mostly of collagen, elastin and smooth muscle, and how biomechanical changes could produce an explanation for the geometrical changes to the artery as a whole. The speakers group was able to find an explanation for the geometrical

change. The function of the artery is to push incoming blood through at a fast enough rate to promote effective circulation. This is normally accomplished with the elastic properties of the wall. The artery expands when it receives blood and then contracts back to its normal configuration to propel the blood forward. This mechanism breaks down in AAA and the arterial wall can no longer provide the elastic response to push the blood through. Apparently, this is what the spherical shape compensates. Whereas the cylindrical shape needs an elastic arterial wall to expand and contract, a spherical shape needs much less and will expand and contract without as much aid. Thus, while the spherical abdominal aorta is less efficient than the normal one at pumping blood, it outperforms the cylindrical abdominal aorta with no elastin or collagen. This is interesting in terms of an evolutionary point of view, as it suggest that this strategy is an older way of solving

the circulation problem. In fact, I remember looking at less sophisticated circulatory systems of lower animals under a microscope and seeing more spherical nodules in between the cylindrical tubes. Perhaps these spheres serve the same purpose as in AAA patients. This reverting to older evolutionary solutions also reminds me of a theory in cancer that eukaryotic cells revert back to prokaryotic behaviors under extreme stress. I was also interested by the different half lives of collagen and elastin.

Whereas elastin will last a person 100 years, or essentially a full lifetime, collagen must be replaced every ~140 days. This made me wonder whether this kind of relationship had an evolutionary advantage. If both molecules had a long half-life, then any structural abnormalities would persist, as neither could be easily replaced. On ther other hand, if both had a short half-life, they might not persist together long enough to maintain a symbiotic relationship.