Object-oriented cardiac cell model composed of functional modules

The complicated mechanisms underlying the biological activities are still not well understood because of a huge variety of the proteins, which support a given cell function, and multiple interactions of molecular pathways. It is necessary to create a dynamic computational model to quantitatively understand the whole complex interactions of a biological system. In this study, the object-oriented methods were applied to develop the computational model of the cell function. The cell model is described as a tree structure of the functional modules that are independent of each other and exchangeable. The cardiac cell model is reconstituted of both the functional modules such as ion channels and the variables such as ion concentrations. The functional modules were classified according to the biological bases. The development of a common simulation platform will facilitate developing a large variety of cell models.