Towards a quantitative understanding of the within-host dynamics of influenza A infections |
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Authors: | Andreas Handel Ira M Longini Jr Rustom Antia |
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Affiliation: | 1.Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA;2.Program of Biostatistics and Biomathematics, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Department of Biostatistics and School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98109, USA;3.Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA |
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Abstract: | Although the influenza A virus has been extensively studied, a quantitative understanding of the infection dynamics is still lacking. To make progress in this direction, we designed several mathematical models and compared them with data from influenza A infections of mice. We find that the immune response (IR) plays an important part in the infection dynamics. Both an innate and an adaptive IR are required to provide adequate explanation of the data. In contrast, regrowth of epithelial cells did not seem to be an important mechanism on the time scale of the infection. We also find that different model variants for both innate and adaptive responses fit the data well, indicating the need for additional data to allow further model discrimination. |
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Keywords: | infectious disease mathematical modelling theoretical immunology |
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