{"title":"The self-organization model reveals systematic characteristics of aging.","authors":"Yin Wang, Tao Huang, Yixue Li, Xianzheng Sha","doi":"10.1186/s12976-020-00120-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-020-00120-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Aging is a fundamental biological process, where key bio-markers interact with each other and synergistically regulate the aging process. Thus aging dysfunction will induce many disorders. Finding aging markers and re-constructing networks based on multi-omics data (i.e. methylation, transcriptional and so on) are informative to study the aging process. However, optimizing the model to predict aging have not been performed systemically, although it is critical to identify potential molecular mechanism of aging related diseases.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This paper aims to model the aging self-organization system using a series of supervised learning methods, and study complex molecular mechanisms of aging at system level: i.e. optimizing the aging network; summarizing interactions between aging markers; accumulating patterns of aging markers within module; finding order-parameters in the aging self-organization system.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In this work, the normal aging process is modeled based on multi-omics profiles across different tissues. In addition, the computational pipeline aims to model aging self-organizing systems and study the relationship between aging and related diseases (i.e. cancers), thus provide useful indicators of aging related diseases and could help to improve prediction abilities of diagnostics.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The aging process could be studied thoroughly by modelling the self-organization system, where key functions and the crosstalk between aging and cancers were identified.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-020-00120-z","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37758899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: Statistical field theory of the transmission of nerve impulses","authors":"Gianluigi Zangari del Balzo","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-16896/v1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-16896/v1","url":null,"abstract":"An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43229491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Computational modeling of the effects of autophagy on amyloid-β peptide levels.","authors":"Kyungreem Han, Soon Ho Kim, MooYoung Choi","doi":"10.1186/s12976-020-00119-6","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12976-020-00119-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved intracellular process that is used for delivering proteins and organelles to the lysosome for degradation. For decades, autophagy has been speculated to regulate amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) accumulation, which is involved in Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, specific autophagic effects on the Aβ kinetics only have begun to be explored.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We develop a mathematical model for autophagy with respect to Aβ kinetics and perform simulations to understand the quantitative relationship between Aβ levels and autophagy activity. In the case of an abnormal increase in the Aβ generation, the degradation, secretion, and clearance rates of Aβ are significantly changed, leading to increased levels of Aβ. When the autophagic Aβ degradation is defective in addition to the increased Aβ generation, the Aβ-regulation failure is accompanied by elevated concentrations of autophagosome and autolysosome, which may further clog neurons.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The model predicts that modulations of different steps of the autophagy pathway (i.e., Aβ sequestration, autophagosome maturation, and intralysosomal hydrolysis) have significant step-specific and combined effects on the Aβ levels and thus suggests therapeutic and preventive implications of autophagy in AD.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-020-00119-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37679788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Modeling methods for estimating HIV incidence: a mathematical review.","authors":"Xiaodan Sun, Hiroshi Nishiura, Yanni Xiao","doi":"10.1186/s12976-019-0118-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-019-0118-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Estimating HIV incidence is crucial for monitoring the epidemiology of this infection, planning screening and intervention campaigns, and evaluating the effectiveness of control measures. However, owing to the long and variable period from HIV infection to the development of AIDS and the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy, accurate incidence estimation remains a major challenge. Numerous estimation methods have been proposed in epidemiological modeling studies, and here we review commonly-used methods for estimation of HIV incidence. We review the essential data required for estimation along with the advantages and disadvantages, mathematical structures and likelihood derivations of these methods. The methods include the classical back-calculation method, the method based on CD4+ T-cell depletion, the use of HIV case reporting data, the use of cohort study data, the use of serial or cross-sectional prevalence data, and biomarker approach. By outlining the mechanistic features of each method, we provide guidance for planning incidence estimation efforts, which may depend on national or regional factors as well as the availability of epidemiological or laboratory datasets.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-019-0118-0","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37564870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"UGM: a more stable procedure for large-scale multiple testing problems, new solutions to identify oncogene.","authors":"Chengyou Liu, Leilei Zhou, Yuhe Wang, Shuchang Tian, Junlin Zhu, Hang Qin, Yong Ding, Hongbing Jiang","doi":"10.1186/s12976-019-0117-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-019-0117-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Variations of gene expression levels play an important role in tumors. There are numerous methods to identify differentially expressed genes in high-throughput sequencing. Several algorithms endeavor to identify distinctive genetic patterns susceptable to particular diseases. Although these processes have been proved successful, the probability that the number of non-differentially expressed genes measured by false discovery rate (FDR) has a large standard deviation, and the misidentification rate (type I error) grows rapidly when the number of genes to be detected become larger. In this study we developed a new method, Unit Gamma Measurement (UGM), accounting for multiple hypotheses test statistics distribution, which could reduce the dependency problem. Simulated expression profile data and breast cancer RNA-Seq data were utilized to testify the accuracy of UGM. The results show that the number of non-differentially expressed genes identified by the UGM is very close to the real-evidence data, and the UGM also has a smaller standard error, range, quartile range and RMS error. In addition, the UGM can be used to screen many breast cancer-associated genes, such as BRCA1, BRCA2, PTEN, BRIP1, etc., provides better accuracy, robustness and efficiency, the method of identification differentially expressed genes in high-throughput sequencing.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-019-0117-1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37481311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ross A Kelly, Molly J Fitches, Steven D Webb, S R Pop, Stewart J Chidlow
{"title":"Modelling the effects of glucagon during glucose tolerance testing.","authors":"Ross A Kelly, Molly J Fitches, Steven D Webb, S R Pop, Stewart J Chidlow","doi":"10.1186/s12976-019-0115-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-019-0115-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Glucose tolerance testing is a tool used to estimate glucose effectiveness and insulin sensitivity in diabetic patients. The importance of such tests has prompted the development and utilisation of mathematical models that describe glucose kinetics as a function of insulin activity. The hormone glucagon, also plays a fundamental role in systemic plasma glucose regulation and is secreted reciprocally to insulin, stimulating catabolic glucose utilisation. However, regulation of glucagon secretion by α-cells is impaired in type-1 and type-2 diabetes through pancreatic islet dysfunction. Despite this, inclusion of glucagon activity when modelling the glucose kinetics during glucose tolerance testing is often overlooked. This study presents two mathematical models of a glucose tolerance test that incorporate glucose-insulin-glucagon dynamics. The first model describes a non-linear relationship between glucagon and glucose, whereas the second model assumes a linear relationship.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Both models are validated against insulin-modified and glucose infusion intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) data, as well as insulin infusion data, and are capable of estimating patient glucose effectiveness (s<sub>G</sub>) and insulin sensitivity (s<sub>I</sub>). Inclusion of glucagon dynamics proves to provide a more detailed representation of the metabolic portrait, enabling estimation of two new diagnostic parameters: glucagon effectiveness (s<sub>E</sub>) and glucagon sensitivity (δ).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The models are used to investigate how different degrees of pax'tient glucagon sensitivity and effectiveness affect the concentration of blood glucose and plasma glucagon during IVGTT and insulin infusion tests, providing a platform from which the role of glucagon dynamics during a glucose tolerance test may be investigated and predicted.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-019-0115-3","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37451030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Autophagy and apoptosis are regulated by stress on Bcl2 by AMBRA1 in the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria.","authors":"Bojie Yang, Quansheng Liu, Yuanhong Bi","doi":"10.1186/s12976-019-0113-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-019-0113-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Autophagy and apoptosis are two important physiological processes that determine cell survival or death in response to different stress signals. The regulatory mechanisms of these two processes share B-cell lymphoma-2 family proteins and AMBRA1, which are present in both the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria. B-cell lymphoma-2 family proteins sense different stresses and interact with AMBRA1 to regulate autophagy and apoptosis, which are respectively mediated by Beclin1 and Caspases. Therefore, we investigated how different levels of stress on B-cell lymphoma-2 family proteins that bind to AMBRA1 in the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria regulate the switch from autophagy to apoptosis.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In this paper, we considered the responses of B-cell lymphoma-2 family proteins, which bind to AMBRA1 in both the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria, to two different levels of stress in a model originally proposed by Kapuy et al. We investigated how these two stress levels affect the transition from autophagy to apoptosis and their effects on apoptosis activation over time. Additionally, we analyzed how the feedback regulation in this model affects the bifurcation diagrams of two levels of stress and cell fate decisions between autophagy and apoptosis.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Autophagy is activated for minor stress in mitochondria regardless of endoplasmic reticulum stress, while apoptosis is activated for only significant stress in mitochondria. Apoptosis is only sensitive to mitochondria stress. The time duration before apoptosis activation is longer in the presence of high AMBRA1 levels with high endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria stress. AMBRA1 can compete with B-cell lymphoma-2 family proteins to bind and activate Beclin1 and thus promote the autophagy process for a long time before apoptosis. Furthermore, apoptosis is prone to occur with increasing activation of Caspases, inactivation of Beclin1-A and the Michaelis constant of Caspases.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>A novel mathematical model has been developed to understand the complex regulatory mechanisms of autophagy and apoptosis. Our model may be applied to further autophagy-apoptosis dynamic modeling experiments and simulations.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-019-0113-5","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41223103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pedro José Gutiérrez-Diez, Miguel Ángel López-Marcos, Julia Martínez-Rodríguez, Jose Russo
{"title":"The effects of time valuation in cancer optimal therapies: a study of chronic myeloid leukemia.","authors":"Pedro José Gutiérrez-Diez, Miguel Ángel López-Marcos, Julia Martínez-Rodríguez, Jose Russo","doi":"10.1186/s12976-019-0106-4","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12976-019-0106-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The mathematical design of optimal therapies to fight cancer is an important research field in today's Biomathematics and Biomedicine given its relevance to formulate patient-specific treatments. Until now, however, cancer optimal therapies have considered that malignancy exclusively depends on the drug concentration and the number of cancer cells, ignoring that the faster the cancer grows the worse the cancer is, and that early drug doses are more prejudicial. Here, we analyze how optimal therapies are affected when the time evolution of treated cancer is envisaged as an additional element determining malignancy, analyzing in detail the implications for imatinib-treated Chronic Myeloid Leukemia.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Taking as reference a mathematical model describing Chronic Myeloid Leukemia dynamics, we design an optimal therapy problem by modifying the usual malignancy objective function, unaware of any temporal dimension of cancer malignance. In particular, we introduce a time valuation factor capturing the increase of malignancy associated to the quick development of the disease and the persistent negative effects of initial drug doses. After assigning values to the parameters involved, we solve and simulate the model with and without the new time valuation factor, comparing the results for the drug doses and the evolution of the disease.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Our computational simulations unequivocally show that the consideration of a time valuation factor capturing the higher malignancy associated with early growth of cancer and drug administration allows more efficient therapies to be designed. More specifically, when this time valuation factor is incorporated into the objective function, the optimal drug doses are lower, and do not involve medically relevant increases in the number of cancer cells or in the disease duration.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>In the light of our simulations and as biomedical evidence strongly suggests, the existence of a time valuation factor affecting malignancy in treated cancer cannot be ignored when designing cancer optimal therapies. Indeed, the consideration of a time valuation factor modulating malignancy results in significant gains of efficiency in the optimal therapy with relevant implications from the biomedical perspective, specially when designing patient-specific treatments.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6540446/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37285783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"MiStImm: an agent-based simulation tool to study the self-nonself discrimination of the adaptive immune response.","authors":"Csaba Kerepesi, Tibor Bakács, Tamás Szabados","doi":"10.1186/s12976-019-0105-5","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12976-019-0105-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>There is an increasing need for complex computational models to perform in silico experiments as an adjunct to in vitro and in vivo experiments in immunology. We introduce Microscopic Stochastic Immune System Simulator (MiStImm), an agent-based simulation tool, that is designed to study the self-nonself discrimination of the adaptive immune system. MiStImm can simulate some components of the humoral adaptive immune response, including T cells, B cells, antibodies, danger signals, interleukins, self cells, foreign antigens, and the interactions among them. The simulation starts after conception and progresses step by step (in time) driven by random simulation events. We also have provided tools to visualize and analyze the output of the simulation program.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>As the first application of MiStImm, we simulated two different immune models, and then we compared performances of them in the mean of self-nonself discrimination. The first model is a so-called conventional immune model, and the second model is based on our earlier T-cell model, called \"one-signal model\", which is developed to resolve three important paradoxes of immunology. Our new T-cell model postulates that a dynamic steady state coupled system is formed through low-affinity complementary TCR-MHC interactions between T cells and host cells. The new model implies that a significant fraction of the naive polyclonal T cells is recruited into the first line of defense against an infection. Simulation experiments using MiStImm have shown that the computational realization of the new model shows real patterns. For example, the new model develops immune memory and it does not develop autoimmune reaction despite the hypothesized, enhanced TCR-MHC interaction between T cells and self cells. Simulations also demonstrated that our new model gives better results to overcome a critical primary infection answering the paradox \"how can a tiny fraction of human genome effectively compete with a vastly larger pool of mutating pathogen DNA?\"</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The outcomes of our in silico experiments, presented here, are supported by numerous clinical trial observations from the field of immunotherapy. We hope that our results will encourage investigations to make in vitro and in vivo experiments clarifying questions about self-nonself discrimination of the adaptive immune system. We also hope that MiStImm or some concept in it will be useful to other researchers who want to implement or compare other immune models.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6498635/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37206542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Daniel Pike, Yan-Ting Shiu, Maheshika Somarathna, Lingling Guo, Tatyana Isayeva, John Totenhagen, Timmy Lee
{"title":"Correction to: High resolution hemodynamic profiling of murine arteriovenous fistula using magnetic resonance imaging and computational fluid dynamics.","authors":"Daniel Pike, Yan-Ting Shiu, Maheshika Somarathna, Lingling Guo, Tatyana Isayeva, John Totenhagen, Timmy Lee","doi":"10.1186/s12976-019-0104-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-019-0104-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>After publication of the original article.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-019-0104-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37138891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}