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© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has an interactive, multifactorial etiology that makes treatment success elusive. This study evaluates how regulatory dynamics impact disease progression and treatment. Computational models of wild-type (WT) and transgenic SOD1-G93A mouse physiology dynamics were built using the first-principles-based first-order feedback framework of dynamic meta-analysis with parameter optimization. Two in silico models were developed: a WT mouse model to simulate normal homeostasis and a SOD1-G93A ALS model to simulate ALS pathology dynamics and their response to in silico treatments. The model simulates functional molecular mechanisms for apoptosis, metal chelation, energetics, excitotoxicity, inflammation, oxidative stress, and proteomics using curated data from published SOD1-G93A mouse experiments. Temporal disease progression measures (rotarod, grip strength, body weight) were used for validation. Results illustrate that untreated SOD1-G93A ALS dynamics cannot maintain homeostasis due to a mathematical oscillating instability as determined by eigenvalue analysis. The onset and magnitude of homeostatic instability corresponded to disease onset and progression. Oscillations were associated with high feedback gain due to hypervigilant regulation. Multiple combination treatments stabilized the SOD1-G93A ALS mouse dynamics to near-normal WT homeostasis. However, treatment timing and effect size were critical to stabilization corresponding to therapeutic success. The dynamics-based approach redefines therapeutic strategies by emphasizing the restoration of homeostasis through precisely timed and stabilizing combination therapies, presenting a promising framework for application to other multifactorial neurodegenerative diseases.

Details

Title
Restoring Homeostasis: Treating Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis by Resolving Dynamic Regulatory Instability
Author
Lee, Albert J B 1 ; Bi, Sarah 1 ; Ridgeway, Eleanor 1 ; Al-Hussaini, Irfan 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Deshpande, Sakshi 1 ; Krueger, Adam 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Khatri, Ahad 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Tsui, Dennis 1 ; Deng, Jennifer 1 ; Mitchell, Cassie S 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Laboratory for Pathology Dynamics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA 
 Laboratory for Pathology Dynamics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA; Center for Machine Learning at Georgia Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA 
First page
872
Publication year
2025
Publication date
2025
Publisher
MDPI AG
ISSN
16616596
e-ISSN
14220067
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3165900666
Copyright
© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.