Gireg Desmeulles, Dominique Dupré, Vincent Rodin and Laurent Misery.
Multi-agents computer simulation: towards a new way of research in allergy and immunodermatology.
Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Elsevier, 121(6):1570, December 2003.
Abstract:
The object of our study is to supply to the researchers in allergology and immunodermatology a technical platform of computer simulations using the multi-agents approach (individual-based approach) in order to develop an in virtuo experimentation laboratory of biological processes. The adopted computer approach proposes to model a biological system thanks to the concepts of agent (individual : cell), environment, interaction, organization and user (biologist). A computer agent is an autonomous entity able perpetually to perceive its immediate environment, to decide which action to realize and finally to achieve this action acting on its environment.
We progress in the development of a multi-agents model of the allergic reaction, allowing to consider simple in virtuo experiments. This kind of modeling has the advantage of allowing a simple description of more or less complex interactions between cells. We will now speak of agent-cell. Several types of agent-cells (Lymphocytes B,T, ...) can thus be modelled within a multi-agent system modelling an immunological reaction. As for them, the interactions can be modelled through the exchange of messages between agents. These messages can be assimilated to the exchange of chemical messengers (Interleukines, Interferons y) between cells.
We will present the first results obtained thanks to a multi-agent simulation engine using SBML (Systems Biology Markup Language). SBML is a standardized description language allowing a nondata processing specialist to simply describe biochemical reactions. The presented simulations results will concern the binding between histamine and its receptor. The interest of this approach is either to test hypotheses (e.g., which is the action of a new molecule on a reaction?) or to work on pathologies for which there is no in vivo animal model or in vitro model thus working on an in virtuo computer model.
[doi:10.1111/j.1523-1747.2003.12655.x] [Desmeulles03c.pdf]