Analyzing Immune Signaling Networks for Identification of Therapeutic Targets in Complex Chronic Medical Disorders, Identification of a Natural Killer Cell Population as a Potential Therapeutic Target for Gulf War Illness And Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, And Modulation of Natural Killer Cell Function by Stimulation with Interleukin 15

摘要

A general method of analyzing immune signaling networks for identification of potential therapeutic targets in complex, chronic medical disorders is described. The disclosure provides the CD3−/CD56+ natural killer (NK) cell population as a potential therapeutic target in the clinically-overlapping disorders Gulf War Illness (GWI) and Myalg Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). The disclosure also provides a method for improving or restoring Natural Killer (NK) cell function by stimulating the NK cells with interleukin-15 (IL-15).

主权项

1. A method of analyzing immune signaling networks for identification of potential therapeutic targets in complex, chronic medical disorders, the method comprising:
selecting a group of subjects having a complex, chronic medical disorder as an experimental group; selecting a group of healthy subjects not having the complex, chronic medical disorder as a control group; subjecting both the experimental group and the control group to test conditions to induce expression of an immune signaling network in the subjects of both the experimental group and the control group; collecting blood samples from each subject tested at a predetermined number of time points before, during, and after subjecting the subjects to the test conditions; analyzing the blood samples to identify immune cell populations and abundance in each sample; applying a computational approach using dynamic modeling to infer a directed immune response network describing coordinated dynamics of the immune cell populations identified and identifying a single consensus immune signaling network for the experimental group and a single consensus immune signaling network for the control group; and analyzing and comparing the consensus immune signaling networks for changes in structure and information flow to identify potential therapeutic targets for the complex, chronic medical disorder.