Bistability and Bacterial Infections
نویسندگان
چکیده
Bacterial infections occur when the natural host defenses are overwhelmed by invading bacteria. The main component of the host defense is impaired when neutrophil count or function is too low, putting the host at great risk of developing an acute infection. In people with intact immune systems, neutrophil count increases during bacterial infection. However, there are two important clinical cases in which they remain constant: a) in patients with neutropenic-associated conditions, such as those undergoing chemotherapy at the nadir (the minimum clinically observable neutrophil level); b) in ex vivo examination of the patient's neutrophil bactericidal activity. Here we study bacterial population dynamics under fixed neutrophil levels by mathematical modelling. We show that under reasonable biological assumptions, there are only two possible scenarios: 1) Bacterial behavior is monostable: it always converges to a stable equilibrium of bacterial concentration which only depends, in a gradual manner, on the neutrophil level (and not on the initial bacterial level). We call such a behavior type I dynamics. 2) The bacterial dynamics is bistable for some range of neutrophil levels. We call such a behavior type II dynamics. In the bistable case (type II), one equilibrium corresponds to a healthy state whereas the other corresponds to a fulminant bacterial infection. We demonstrate that published data of in vitro Staphylococcus epidermidis bactericidal experiments are inconsistent with both the type I dynamics and the commonly used linear model and are consistent with type II dynamics. We argue that type II dynamics is a plausible mechanism for the development of a fulminant infection.
منابع مشابه
Evidence for bistable bacteria-neutrophil interaction and its clinical implications.
Neutropenia, which may develop as a consequence of chemotherapy, increases the risk of bacterial infection. Similarly, increased risk of bacterial infection appears in disorders of phagocytic functions, such as the genetic disorder chronic granulomatous disease. To elucidate the organizing principles behind these distinct immunodeficiency conditions, we investigated the interaction between in v...
متن کاملOptimization of Bistability in Nonlinear Chalcogenide Fiber Bragg Grating for All Optical Switch and Memory Applications
We solve the coupled mode equations governing the chalcogenide nonlinear fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) numerically, and obtain the bistability characteristics. The characteristics of the chalcogenide nonlinear FBGs such as: switching threshold intensity, bistability interval and on-off switching ratio are studied. The effects of FBG length and its third order nonlinear refractive index on FBG cha...
متن کاملAn overview of the role of bacterial infection in male infertility
An important cause of male infertility is the bacterial infections of the genitourinary tract. These infections affect sperm cell function and whole spermatogenesis and also cause deterioration in spermatogenesis, obstruction of the seminal tract, and impairment of spermatozoa function. The most important bacteria associated with genitourinary tract infections include chlamydia trachomatis, Nei...
متن کاملEffects of Crowd, smoking, bacterial and fungal infections on COVID-19
The intuition that population density increases the propensity of an epidemic to spread in cities is correct in the sense that increased density likely leads to an increase in the contact rate of an individual, which makes the reproduction number larger and leads to larger infectious disease outbreaks in dense areas. A wealth of research already suggests that smoking suppresses immune function ...
متن کاملThe inoculum effect and band-pass bacterial response to periodic antibiotic treatment
The inoculum effect (IE) refers to the decreasing efficacy of an antibiotic with increasing bacterial density. It represents a unique strategy of antibiotic tolerance and it can complicate design of effective antibiotic treatment of bacterial infections. To gain insight into this phenomenon, we have analyzed responses of a lab strain of Escherichia coli to antibiotics that target the ribosome. ...
متن کامل