AUTHOR=Tokarski Christian , Hummert Sabine , Mech Franziska , Figge Marc Thilo , Germerodt Sebastian , Schroeter Anja , Schuster Stefan 

TITLE=Agent-Based Modeling Approach of Immune Defense Against Spores of Opportunistic Human Pathogenic Fungi

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2012

YEAR=2012

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2012.00129

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2012.00129

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=Opportunistic human pathogenic fungi like the ubiquitous fungus Aspergillus fumigatus are a major
threat to immunocompromised patients. An impaired immune system renders the body vulnerable to inva-
sive mycoses that often lead to the death of the patient. While the number of immunocompromised patients
is rising with medical progress, the process and dynamics of defence against invaded and ready to germinate
fungal conidia are still insufficiently understood.
Besides macrophages, neutrophil granulocytes form an important line of defence in that they clear conidia.
Live imaging shows the interaction of those phagocytes and conidia as a dynamic process of touching, drag-
ging and phagocytosis. To unravel strategies of phagocytes on the hunt for conidia an agent-based modeling
approach is used, implemented in NetLogo. Different modes of movement of phagocytes are tested regard-
ing their clearing efficiency: random walk, short term persistence in their recent direction, chemotaxis of
chemokines excreted by conidia and communication between phagocytes.