Network analysis of the immune state of mice

Abstract

The mammalian immune system protects individuals from infection and disease. It is a complex system of interacting cells and molecules, which has been studied extensively to investigate its detailed function, principally using laboratory mice. Despite the complexity of the immune system, it is often analysed using a restricted set of immunological parameters. Here we have sought to generate a system-wide view of the murine immune response, which we have done by undertaking a network analysis of 120 immune measures. To date, there has only been limited network analyses of the immune system. Our network analysis identified a relatively low number of communities of immune measure nodes. Some of these communities recapitulate the well-known T helper 1 vs. T helper 2 cytokine polarisation (where ordination analyses failed to do so), which validates the utility of our approach. Other communities we detected show apparently novel juxtapositions of immune nodes. We suggest that the structure of these other communities might represent functional immunological units, which may require further empirical investigation. These results show the utility of network analysis in understanding the functioning of the mammalian immune system.

The genetics of immune and infection phenotypes in wild mice, Mus musculus domesticus

“…Among the cytokine‐coding loci that we investigated, we found a range of associations with cell populations, the concentration of antibodies and cytokine PCs. Many cytokines are multifunctional and widely connected in the generation on an immune response (Fonseca dos Reis et al, 2021), such that we should not be surprised that diversity at cytokine‐coding loci may have pleiotropic phenotypic effects. Five cytokine‐coding loci (IL‐1a, IL‐1b, IL‐6, IL‐17a and TNF) were associated with the concentration of IgE, and an overlapping set of 5 (IL‐1b, IL‐6, IL‐10, IL‐17a and TNF) were associated with cytokine PCs.…”

The genetics of immune and infection phenotypes in wild mice, Mus musculus domesticus

“…Among the cytokine-coding loci that we investigated we found a range of effects on cell populations, on the concentration of antibodies, and on cytokine PCs. Many cytokines are multifunctional and widely connected in the generation on an immune response (Fonseca dos Reis et al, 2021), such that we should not be surprised that genetic effects of cytokine-coding loci may have pleiotropic phenotypic effects. Five cytokine coding loci (IL-1a, IL-1b, IL-6, IL-17a and TNF) affected the concentration of IgE, and an overlapping set of 5 (IL-1b, IL-6, IL-10, IL-17a, and TNF) affected cytokine PCs (Table 2).…”