Nature and Consequences of Biological Reductionism for the Immunological Study of Infectious Diseases

Frontiers in Immunology

Athos Antoniades¹  Yiorgos Apidianakis²  Jeanne M. Fair³  Marc H. V. Van Regenmortel⁴  Ariel L. Rivas⁵  Stylianos Chatzipanagiotou⁶  Mark D. Jankowski⁷  Michelle J. Iandiorio⁸  Jane C. Fazio⁸  Anastasios Ioannidis⁹  Renata Piccinini^1,10  Almira L. Hoogesteijn^1,12  Shlomo E. Blum^1,13  Gabriel Leitner^1,13 

[1] 0Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus;1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus;2Los Alamos National Laboratory, Biosecurity and Public Health, Los Alamos, NM, United States;3School of Biotechnology, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France;Center for Global Health, Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, United States;Department of Biopathology and Clinical Microbiology, Aeginition Hospital, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece;Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States;Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, United States;Department of Nursing, Faculty of Human Movement and Quality of Life Sciences, University of Peloponnese, Sparta, Greece;Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Milan, Milan, Italy;Environmental Assessment, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Seattle, WA, United States;Human Ecology, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados (CINVESTAV), Mérida, México;National Mastitis Center, Kimron Veterinary Institute, Bet Dagan, Israel;

关键词: methods;    host–microbe interactions;    reductionism;    non-reductionism;    pattern recognition;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fimmu.2017.00612

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Evolution has conserved “economic” systems that perform many functions, faster or better, with less. For example, three to five leukocyte types protect from thousands of pathogens. To achieve so much with so little, biological systems combine their limited elements, creating complex structures. Yet, the prevalent research paradigm is reductionist. Focusing on infectious diseases, reductionist and non-reductionist views are here described. The literature indicates that reductionism is associated with information loss and errors, while non-reductionist operations can extract more information from the same data. When designed to capture one-to-many/many-to-one interactions—including the use of arrows that connect pairs of consecutive observations—non-reductionist (spatial–temporal) constructs eliminate data variability from all dimensions, except along one line, while arrows describe the directionality of temporal changes that occur along the line. To validate the patterns detected by non-reductionist operations, reductionist procedures are needed. Integrated (non-reductionist and reductionist) methods can (i) distinguish data subsets that differ immunologically and statistically; (ii) differentiate false-negative from -positive errors; (iii) discriminate disease stages; (iv) capture in vivo, multilevel interactions that consider the patient, the microbe, and antibiotic-mediated responses; and (v) assess dynamics. Integrated methods provide repeatable and biologically interpretable information.

【 授权许可】

Unknown