Supracellular structural principle and geometry of blood vessels (original) (raw)

Summary

All the supracellular structures of multicellular organisms are subordinate to a single structural principle. It is a particular space division minimizing the potential energy of the constituent units in a field of mechanical force and is specified as equilibrium space division (ESD). Three-dimensional ESD is characterized by the feature that three faces unite to an edge and four edges converge to a corner, but other geometrical characters are susceptible to variation. Blood vessels are localized predominantly on edges of ESD, so that their geometry depends largely on ESD. ESD is represented approximately by a model of complete space division with uniform β-tetrakaidecahedra, and some geometrical parameters of blood vessels can be derived theoretically from ESD, partly with the aid of the above-mentioned model. ESD is a statistical process under incomplete restrictions. It is consequently impossible to interpret the morphogenesis of supracellular structures directly from genetic information in a deterministic manner.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Kotakecho 1-33, 176, Nerimaku, Tokyo, Japan
   Norio Suwa

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1. Norio Suwa
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The essential part of this paper was presented at the symposium for celebrating the 70th birthday of Prof. J.A. Linzbach in Göttingen on January 19, 1980

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Suwa, N. Supracellular structural principle and geometry of blood vessels.Virchows Arch. A Path. Anat. and Histol. 390, 161–179 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02215982

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• Accepted: 28 August 1980
• Issue Date: February 1981
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02215982

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