An exploratory stochastic model for toxic effects on cells

Abstract

A multivariate dynamic Markov model is formulated to describe the possible effect of a generic chemical toxin on a generic cell population in an organ. Asymptotic methods (large cell population) are used to show that numbers and toxin may be jointly Gaussian/normally distributed; the joint stochastic process is approximately Ornstein-Uhlenbeck. Application to dose-response, and hence risk analysis, is briefly discussed.