title: Stability and phase transitions in a mathematical model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
abstract: We present a mathematical model to investigate the role of the immune system in the Duchenne muscular dystrophy disease. It is based on the assumption that the immune system contributes to the tissue damage and indeed its interaction with the muscle tissue after an initial endogenous damage can be described as a predator-prey system showing typical oscillations. In this article we investigate the dynamical properties of the system. We find that, for a biologically relevant parameters range, it shows two phase transitions between qualitative different behaviors corresponding to complete recover or to a state where muscle regeneration and degeneration coexist.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Computing Applications M. Picone, National Research Council (CNR), c/o IASI, Viale Manzoni 30, 00185 Rome, Italy. g.dellacqua@iac.cnr.it
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dell'Acqua
authors.forename: Filippo
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Castiglione
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018448:Models, Immunological; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology; D020388:Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology