Mathematical model of susceptibility, resistance, and resilience in the within-host dynamics between a Plasmodium parasite and the immune system.
We developed a coupled age-structured partial differential equation model to capture the disease dynamics during blood-stage malaria. The addition of age structure for the parasite population, with respect to previous models, allows us to better characterize the interaction between the malaria parasite and red blood cells during infection. Here we prove that the system we propose is well-posed and there exist at least two global states. We further demonstrate that the numerical simulation of the system coincides with clinically observed outcomes of primary and secondary malaria infection. The well-posedness of this system guarantees that the behavior of the model remains smooth, bounded, and continuously dependent on initial conditions; calibration with clinical data will constrain domains of parameters and variables to physiological ranges.
Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, United States.
Yi
Y
Yan
Department of Mathematics, University of Georgia, United States.
Brian
B
Adam
Department of Medicine, Emory University, United States; Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University, United States.
Mary
M
Galinski
Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, United States; Department of Genetics, University of Georgia, United States.
Jessica
J
C Kissinger
Department of Medicine, Emory University, United States.
Alberto
A
Moreno
Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, United States; Department of Mathematics, University of Georgia, United States. Electronic address: jgutierr@uga.edu.
Juan B
JB
Gutierrez
D000818:Animals; D004198:Disease Susceptibility; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D006801:Humans; D007107:Immune System; D008288:Malaria / Q000276:immunology* / Q000469:parasitology*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010961:Plasmodium
Immune system; Malaria; Resilience; Resistance; Susceptibility; Within-host dynamics