| The progression of atherosclerosis involves transport of blood-borne atherogenic molecules into the arterial wall. Understanding these mass transport phenomena may advance atherogenesis research. Endothelial cells serve as the interface between lumenal blood and the vessel wall, playing an important role in mass transport. The objectives of this study were to investigate the local mass transport patterns on endothelial cells, and specifically, the effect of endothelial cell surface configuration on transport patterns.; A semi-Lagrangian finite element solver for the advection-diffusion equation was developed based on an existing code so as to improve accuracy and efficiency. Flow and mass transport simulations were performed on two endothelial monolayer surfaces (aligned and non-aligned cells), which were constructed from the topography measurements by atomic force microscopy. The results showed a highly heterogeneous distribution of mass flux at the cell surface. We conclude that cell surface configuration greatly affects the intracellular mass transport. |
