title: A mathematical model of skeletal muscle disease and immune response in the mdx mouse.
abstract: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a genetic disease that results in the death of affected boys by early adulthood. The genetic defect responsible for DMD has been known for over 25 years, yet at present there is neither cure nor effective treatment for DMD. During early disease onset, the mdx mouse has been validated as an animal model for DMD and use of this model has led to valuable but incomplete insights into the disease process. For example, immune cells are thought to be responsible for a significant portion of muscle cell death in the mdx mouse; however, the role and time course of the immune response in the dystrophic process have not been well described. In this paper we constructed a simple mathematical model to investigate the role of the immune response in muscle degeneration and subsequent regeneration in the mdx mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Our model suggests that the immune response contributes substantially to the muscle degeneration and regeneration processes. Furthermore, the analysis of the model predicts that the immune system response oscillates throughout the life of the mice, and the damaged fibers are never completely cleared.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Statistics, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah 26666, UAE.
authors.forename: Abdul Salam
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6771-2561
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Jarrah
authors.affiliation: Institute for Applied Mathematics, National Research Council of Italy, 00185 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Filippo
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1442-3552
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Castiglione
authors.affiliation: Department of Population Health Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA.
authors.forename: Nicholas P
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA.
authors.forename: Robert W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Grange
authors.affiliation: Center of Quantitative Medicine, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT 06030, USA ; Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, CT 06030, USA.
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-9143-9451
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Laubenbacher
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D018101:Mice, Inbred mdx; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000473:pathology*; D009137:Muscular Dystrophy, Animal / Q000473:pathology*; D020388:Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne / Q000473:pathology*