Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 736394, 16 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/736394
Research Article

Computational Modeling of Microabscess Formation

Alexandre Bittencourt Pigozzo,1 Gilson Costa Macedo,2 Rodrigo Weber dos Santos,1 and Marcelo Lobosco1

1Graduate Program in Computational Modeling, UFJF, Rua José Lourenço Kelmer s/n, Campus Universitário, Bairro São Pedro, 36036-900 Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil
2Graduate Program in Biological Sciences, UFJF, Rua José Lourenço Kelmer s/n, Campus Universitário, Bairro São Pedro, 36036-900 Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil

Received 29 June 2012; Revised 28 August 2012; Accepted 5 September 2012

Academic Editor: Vladimir Brusic

Copyright © 2012 Alexandre Bittencourt Pigozzo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Bacterial infections can be of two types: acute or chronic. The chronic bacterial infections are characterized by being a large bacterial infection and/or an infection where the bacteria grows rapidly. In these cases, the immune response is not capable of completely eliminating the infection which may lead to the formation of a pattern known as microabscess (or abscess). The microabscess is characterized by an area comprising fluids, bacteria, immune cells (mainly neutrophils), and many types of dead cells. This distinct pattern of formation can only be numerically reproduced and studied by models that capture the spatiotemporal dynamics of the human immune system (HIS). In this context, our work aims to develop and implement an initial computational model to study the process of microabscess formation during a bacterial infection.