Agent-based modeling approach of immune defense against spores of opportunistic human pathogenic fungi.

Frontiers in Microbiology
Christian TokarskiStefan Schuster

Abstract

Opportunistic human pathogenic fungi like the ubiquitous fungus Aspergillus fumigatus are a major threat to immunocompromised patients. An impaired immune system renders the body vulnerable to invasive mycoses that often lead to the death of the patient. While the number of immunocompromised patients is rising with medical progress, the process, and dynamics of defense against invaded and ready to germinate fungal conidia are still insufficiently understood. Besides macrophages, neutrophil granulocytes form an important line of defense in that they clear conidia. Live imaging shows the interaction of those phagocytes and conidia as a dynamic process of touching, dragging, and phagocytosis. To unravel strategies of phagocytes on the hunt for conidia an agent-based modeling approach is used, implemented in NetLogo. Different modes of movement of phagocytes are tested regarding their clearing efficiency: random walk, short-term persistence in their recent direction, chemotaxis of chemokines excreted by conidia, and communication between phagocytes. While the short-term persistence hunting strategy turned out to be superior to the simple random walk, following a gradient of chemokines released by conidial agents is even better. The...Continue Reading

Citations

May 28, 2014·BioMed Research International·Ferdinando ChiacchioFrancesco Pappalardo
Feb 10, 2016·Briefings in Functional Genomics·Jana SchleicherJörg Linde
Jan 19, 2016·Frontiers in Physiology·Lisa C Barros de Andrade E SousaEdda Klipp
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Aug 2, 2016·Integrative Biology : Quantitative Biosciences From Nano to Macro·Xiaji LiuJason M Haugh
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Feb 1, 2019·Processes·Kerri-Ann NortonAleksander S Popel

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Aspergillosis

Aspergillosis is the name given to a wide variety of diseases caused by infection by fungi of the genus Aspergillus. Aspergillosis occurs in chronic or acute forms which are clinically very distinct. Most cases of acute aspergillosis occur in patients with severely compromised immune systems. Chronic colonization or infection can cause complications in people with underlying respiratory illnesses. Discover the latest research on aspergillosis here.

Aspergillosis (ASM)

Aspergillosis is the name given to a wide variety of diseases caused by infection by fungi of the genus Aspergillus. Aspergillosis occurs in chronic or acute forms which are clinically very distinct. Most cases of acute aspergillosis occur in patients with severely compromised immune systems. Chronic colonization or infection can cause complications in people with underlying respiratory illnesses. Discover the latest research on aspergillosis here.