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Krix S, Wilczynski E, Falgàs N, Sánchez-Valle R, Yoles E, Nevo U, Baruch K, Fröhlich H. Towards early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: advances in immune-related blood biomarkers and computational approaches. Front Immunol 2024; 15:1343900. [PMID: 38720902 PMCID: PMC11078023 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1343900] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/24/2023] [Accepted: 04/08/2024] [Indexed: 05/12/2024] Open
Abstract
Alzheimer's disease has an increasing prevalence in the population world-wide, yet current diagnostic methods based on recommended biomarkers are only available in specialized clinics. Due to these circumstances, Alzheimer's disease is usually diagnosed late, which contrasts with the currently available treatment options that are only effective for patients at an early stage. Blood-based biomarkers could fill in the gap of easily accessible and low-cost methods for early diagnosis of the disease. In particular, immune-based blood-biomarkers might be a promising option, given the recently discovered cross-talk of immune cells of the central nervous system with those in the peripheral immune system. Here, we give a background on recent advances in research on brain-immune system cross-talk in Alzheimer's disease and review machine learning approaches, which can combine multiple biomarkers with further information (e.g. age, sex, APOE genotype) into predictive models supporting an earlier diagnosis. In addition, mechanistic modeling approaches, such as agent-based modeling open the possibility to model and analyze cell dynamics over time. This review aims to provide an overview of the current state of immune-system related blood-based biomarkers and their potential for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sophia Krix
- Department of Bioinformatics, Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI), Sankt Augustin, Germany
- Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (b-it), University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - Ella Wilczynski
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
| | - Neus Falgàs
- Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Cognitive Disorders Unit, Neurology Service, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona-Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (FCRB-IDIBAPS), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Raquel Sánchez-Valle
- Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Cognitive Disorders Unit, Neurology Service, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona-Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (FCRB-IDIBAPS), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Eti Yoles
- ImmunoBrain Checkpoint Ltd., Rechovot, Israel
| | - Uri Nevo
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
| | - Kuti Baruch
- ImmunoBrain Checkpoint Ltd., Rechovot, Israel
| | - Holger Fröhlich
- Department of Bioinformatics, Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI), Sankt Augustin, Germany
- Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (b-it), University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
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Sego TJ. SimService: a lightweight library for building simulation services in Python. Bioinformatics 2024; 40:btae009. [PMID: 38237907 PMCID: PMC10809901 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2023] [Revised: 11/27/2023] [Accepted: 01/04/2024] [Indexed: 01/27/2024] Open
Abstract
SUMMARY Integrative biological modeling requires software infrastructure to launch, interconnect, and execute simulation software components without loss of functionality. SimService is a software library that enables deploying simulations in integrated applications as memory-isolated services with interactive proxy objects in the Python programming language. SimService supports customizing the interface of proxies so that simulation developers and users alike can tailor generated simulation instances according to model, method, and integrated application. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION SimService is written in Python, is freely available on GitHub under the MIT license at https://github.com/tjsego/simservice, and is available for download via the Python Package Index (package name "simservice") and conda (package name "simservice" on the conda-forge channel).
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Affiliation(s)
- T J Sego
- Department of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610-0225, United States
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Mochan E, Sego TJ. Mathematical Modeling of the Lethal Synergism of Coinfecting Pathogens in Respiratory Viral Infections: A Review. Microorganisms 2023; 11:2974. [PMID: 38138118 PMCID: PMC10745501 DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms11122974] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2023] [Revised: 12/05/2023] [Accepted: 12/08/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Influenza A virus (IAV) infections represent a substantial global health challenge and are often accompanied by coinfections involving secondary viruses or bacteria, resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. The clinical impact of coinfections remains poorly understood, with conflicting findings regarding fatality. Isolating the impact of each pathogen and mechanisms of pathogen synergy during coinfections is challenging and further complicated by host and pathogen variability and experimental conditions. Factors such as cytokine dysregulation, immune cell function alterations, mucociliary dysfunction, and changes to the respiratory tract epithelium have been identified as contributors to increased lethality. The relative significance of these factors depends on variables such as pathogen types, infection timing, sequence, and inoculum size. Mathematical biological modeling can play a pivotal role in shedding light on the mechanisms of coinfections. Mathematical modeling enables the quantification of aspects of the intra-host immune response that are difficult to assess experimentally. In this narrative review, we highlight important mechanisms of IAV coinfection with bacterial and viral pathogens and survey mathematical models of coinfection and the insights gained from them. We discuss current challenges and limitations facing coinfection modeling, as well as current trends and future directions toward a complete understanding of coinfection using mathematical modeling and computer simulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ericka Mochan
- Department of Computational and Chemical Sciences, Carlow University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - T. J. Sego
- Department of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA;
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Grabowski F, Kochańczyk M, Korwek Z, Czerkies M, Prus W, Lipniacki T. Antagonism between viral infection and innate immunity at the single-cell level. PLoS Pathog 2023; 19:e1011597. [PMID: 37669278 PMCID: PMC10503725 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1011597] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2023] [Revised: 09/15/2023] [Accepted: 08/02/2023] [Indexed: 09/07/2023] Open
Abstract
When infected with a virus, cells may secrete interferons (IFNs) that prompt nearby cells to prepare for upcoming infection. Reciprocally, viral proteins often interfere with IFN synthesis and IFN-induced signaling. We modeled the crosstalk between the propagating virus and the innate immune response using an agent-based stochastic approach. By analyzing immunofluorescence microscopy images we observed that the mutual antagonism between the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and infected A549 cells leads to dichotomous responses at the single-cell level and complex spatial patterns of cell signaling states. Our analysis indicates that RSV blocks innate responses at three levels: by inhibition of IRF3 activation, inhibition of IFN synthesis, and inhibition of STAT1/2 activation. In turn, proteins coded by IFN-stimulated (STAT1/2-activated) genes inhibit the synthesis of viral RNA and viral proteins. The striking consequence of these inhibitions is a lack of coincidence of viral proteins and IFN expression within single cells. The model enables investigation of the impact of immunostimulatory defective viral particles and signaling network perturbations that could potentially facilitate containment or clearance of the viral infection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Frederic Grabowski
- Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Marek Kochańczyk
- Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Zbigniew Korwek
- Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Maciej Czerkies
- Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Wiktor Prus
- Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Tomasz Lipniacki
- Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
- Department of Statistics, Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States of America
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Laubenbacher R, Niarakis A, Helikar T, An G, Shapiro B, Malik-Sheriff RS, Sego TJ, Knapp A, Macklin P, Glazier JA. Building digital twins of the human immune system: toward a roadmap. NPJ Digit Med 2022; 5:64. [PMID: 35595830 PMCID: PMC9122990 DOI: 10.1038/s41746-022-00610-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2021] [Accepted: 04/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Digital twins, customized simulation models pioneered in industry, are beginning to be deployed in medicine and healthcare, with some major successes, for instance in cardiovascular diagnostics and in insulin pump control. Personalized computational models are also assisting in applications ranging from drug development to treatment optimization. More advanced medical digital twins will be essential to making precision medicine a reality. Because the immune system plays an important role in such a wide range of diseases and health conditions, from fighting pathogens to autoimmune disorders, digital twins of the immune system will have an especially high impact. However, their development presents major challenges, stemming from the inherent complexity of the immune system and the difficulty of measuring many aspects of a patient’s immune state in vivo. This perspective outlines a roadmap for meeting these challenges and building a prototype of an immune digital twin. It is structured as a four-stage process that proceeds from a specification of a concrete use case to model constructions, personalization, and continued improvement.
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Affiliation(s)
- R Laubenbacher
- Department of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
| | - A Niarakis
- Université Paris-Saclay, Laboratoire Européen de Recherche pour la Polyarthrite rhumatoïde - Genhotel, Univ Evry, Evry, France.,Lifeware Group, Inria, Saclay-île de France, 91120, Palaiseau, France
| | - T Helikar
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA
| | - G An
- Department of Surgery, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA
| | - B Shapiro
- Department of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - R S Malik-Sheriff
- European Bioinformatics Institute, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-EBI), Hinxton, Cambridge, UK
| | - T J Sego
- Biocomplexity Institute and Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | - A Knapp
- Department of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - P Macklin
- Biocomplexity Institute and Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
| | - J A Glazier
- Biocomplexity Institute and Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
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Multiscale Model of Antiviral Timing, Potency, and Heterogeneity Effects on an Epithelial Tissue Patch Infected by SARS-CoV-2. Viruses 2022; 14:v14030605. [PMID: 35337012 PMCID: PMC8953050 DOI: 10.3390/v14030605] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2021] [Revised: 03/08/2022] [Accepted: 03/10/2022] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
We extend our established agent-based multiscale computational model of infection of lung tissue by SARS-CoV-2 to include pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic models of remdesivir. We model remdesivir treatment for COVID-19; however, our methods are general to other viral infections and antiviral therapies. We investigate the effects of drug potency, drug dosing frequency, treatment initiation delay, antiviral half-life, and variability in cellular uptake and metabolism of remdesivir and its active metabolite on treatment outcomes in a simulated patch of infected epithelial tissue. Non-spatial deterministic population models which treat all cells of a given class as identical can clarify how treatment dosage and timing influence treatment efficacy. However, they do not reveal how cell-to-cell variability affects treatment outcomes. Our simulations suggest that for a given treatment regime, including cell-to-cell variation in drug uptake, permeability and metabolism increase the likelihood of uncontrolled infection as the cells with the lowest internal levels of antiviral act as super-spreaders within the tissue. The model predicts substantial variability in infection outcomes between similar tissue patches for different treatment options. In models with cellular metabolic variability, antiviral doses have to be increased significantly (>50% depending on simulation parameters) to achieve the same treatment results as with the homogeneous cellular metabolism.
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