A biomathematical model of immune response and barrier function in mice with pneumococcal lung infection

PLoS One. 2020 Dec 3;15(12):e0243147. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243147. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The course of the disease is often highly dynamic with unforeseen critical deterioration within hours in a relevant proportion of patients. Besides antibiotic treatment, novel adjunctive therapies are under development. Their additive value needs to be explored in preclinical and clinical studies and corresponding therapy schedules require optimization prior to introduction into clinical practice. Biomathematical modeling of the underlying disease and therapy processes might be a useful aid to support these processes. We here propose a biomathematical model of murine immune response during infection with Streptococcus pneumoniae aiming at predicting the outcome of different treatment schedules. The model consists of a number of non-linear ordinary differential equations describing the dynamics and interactions of the pulmonal pneumococcal population and relevant cells of the innate immune response, namely alveolar- and inflammatory macrophages and neutrophils. The cytokines IL-6 and IL-10 and the chemokines CCL2, CXCL1 and CXCL5 are considered as major mediators of the immune response. We also model the invasion of peripheral blood monocytes, their differentiation into macrophages and bacterial penetration through the epithelial barrier causing blood stream infections. We impose therapy effects on this system by modelling antibiotic therapy and treatment with the novel C5a-inactivator NOX-D19. All equations are derived by translating known biological mechanisms into equations and assuming appropriate response kinetics. Unknown model parameters were determined by fitting the predictions of the model to time series data derived from mice experiments with close-meshed time series of state parameters. Parameter fittings resulted in a good agreement of model and data for the experimental scenarios. The model can be used to predict the performance of alternative schedules of combined antibiotic and NOX-D19 treatment. We conclude that we established a comprehensive biomathematical model of pneumococcal lung infection, immune response and barrier function in mice allowing simulations of new treatment schedules. We aim to validate the model on the basis of further experimental data. We also plan the inclusion of further novel therapy principles and the translation of the model to the human situation in the near future.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Anti-Bacterial Agents / therapeutic use
  • Complement C5a / antagonists & inhibitors
  • Complement C5a / immunology
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Immunity, Innate* / drug effects
  • Lung / drug effects
  • Lung / immunology*
  • Mice
  • Models, Immunological
  • Pneumonia, Pneumococcal / drug therapy
  • Pneumonia, Pneumococcal / immunology*
  • Streptococcus pneumoniae / drug effects
  • Streptococcus pneumoniae / immunology*

Substances

  • Anti-Bacterial Agents
  • Complement C5a

Grants and funding

SS was funded by CAPSyS (“Medical Systems Biology of Pulmonary Barrier Failure in Community Acquired Pneumonia”, grant number 01ZX1304B) and Sympath (“Systems-medicine of pneumonia-aggravated atherosclerosis”, grant number 01ZX1906B). Both research projects are funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the e:Med research and funding concept. MW was funded by the DFG; SFB-TR84, C6 and C9. We acknowledge support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and University of Leipzig within the program of Open Access Publishing. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.