Mechanisms and Points of Control in the Spread of Inflammation: A Mathematical Investigation.

Mechanisms and Points of Control in the Spread of Inflammation: A Mathematical Investigation. Bull Math Biol. 2020 Mar 28;82(4):45 Authors: Bayani A, Dunster JL, Crofts JJ, Nelson MR Abstract Understanding the mechanisms that control the body's response to inflammation is of key importance, due to its involvement in myriad medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease and asthma. While resolving inflammation has historically been considered a passive process, since the turn of the century the hunt for novel therapeutic interventions has begun to focus upon active manipulation of constituent mechanisms, particularly involving the roles of apoptosing neutrophils, phagocytosing macrophages and anti-inflammatory mediators. Moreover, there is growing interest in how inflammatory damage can spread spatially due to the motility of inflammatory mediators and immune cells. For example, impaired neutrophil chemotaxis is implicated in causing chronic inflammation under trauma and in ageing, while neutrophil migration is an attractive therapeutic target in ailments such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We extend an existing homogeneous model that captures interactions between inflammatory mediators, neutrophils and macrophages to incorporate spatial behaviour. Through bifurcation analysis and numerical simulation, we show that spatially inhomogeneous outcomes can present close to the switch from bistability to gua...
Source: Bulletin of Mathematical Biology - Category: Bioinformatics Authors: Tags: Bull Math Biol Source Type: research