Reviewing Atrial Fibrillation Pathophysiology from a Network Medicine Perspective: The Relevance of Structural Remodeling, Inflammation, and the Immune System

Abstract

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common type of sustained arrhythmia. The numerous gaps concerning the knowledge of its mechanism make improving clinical management difficult. As omics technologies allow more comprehensive insight into biology and disease at a molecular level, bioinformatics encompasses valuable tools for studying systems biology, as well as combining and modeling multi-omics data and networks. Network medicine is a subarea of network biology where disease traits are considered perturbations within the interactome. With this approach, potential disease drivers can be revealed, and the effect of drugs, novel or repurposed, used alone or in combination, may be studied. Thus, this work aims to review AF pathology from a network medicine perspective, helping researchers to comprehend the disease more deeply. Essential concepts involved in network medicine are highlighted, and specific research applying network medicine to study AF is discussed. Additionally, data integration through literature mining and bioinformatics tools, with network building, is exemplified. Together, all of the data show the substantial role of structural remodeling, the immune system, and inflammation in this disease etiology. Despite this, there are still gaps to be filled about AF.