Affiliations: [a] Department of Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Grunwaldzka 6, 60-780 Poznań, Poland. [email protected] | [b] Institute of Computing Science, Poznan University of Technology, Piotrowo 2, 60-965 Poznań, Poland and Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Noskowskiego 12/14, 61-704 Poznań, Poland. {Agnieszka.Rybarczyk, piotr}@cs.put.poznan.pl
Correspondence:
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Address for correspondence: Institute of Computing Science, Poznan University of Technology, Piotrowo 2, 60-965 Poznań, Poland
Abstract: Essential hypertension is the world’s most prevalent cardiovascular disorder, however, its etiology remains poorly understood, making it difficult to study. The evidence suggests that inflammation can lead to the development of hypertension and that oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction are involved in the inflammatory cascade. In this work, to investigate the influence of these factors on the essential hypertension development, a stochastic Petri net model has been built and then analyzed. To obtain appropriate initial marking and kinetic rate constants for the model, a simple heuristic has been developed. The application of this variant of Petri nets allowed for taking into account some important dependencies present in the modeled system what would be impossible in the case of qualitative models. This has enabled for an in-depth analysis of the studied phenomenon and a validation of biological conclusions previously obtained on the basis of a qualitative model.
Keywords: hypertension, inflammation, stochastic Petri nets, simulation, knockout analysis