A novel logical model of COVID-19 intracellular infection to support therapies development.

In this paper, a logical-based mathematical model of the cellular pathways involved in the COVID-19 infection has been developed to study various drug treatments (single or in combination), in different illness scenarios, providing insights into their mechanisms of action. Drug simulations suggest t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Elena Piretto, Gianluca Selvaggio, Damiano Bragantini, Enrico Domenici, Luca Marchetti
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2022-08-01
Series:PLoS Computational Biology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010443
Description
Summary:In this paper, a logical-based mathematical model of the cellular pathways involved in the COVID-19 infection has been developed to study various drug treatments (single or in combination), in different illness scenarios, providing insights into their mechanisms of action. Drug simulations suggest that the effects of single drugs are limited, or depending on the scenario counterproductive, whereas better results appear combining different treatments. Specifically, the combination of the anti-inflammatory Baricitinib and the anti-viral Remdesivir showed significant benefits while a stronger efficacy emerged from the triple combination of Baricitinib, Remdesivir, and the corticosteroid Dexamethasone. Together with a sensitivity analysis, we performed an analysis of the mechanisms of the drugs to reveal their impact on molecular pathways.
ISSN:1553-734X
1553-7358