Modelling the role of macrophage polarization during pulmonary infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with cellular immunity.

Authors

Ruidi Ding, Cunjuan Dong, Long Zhang, Zhidong Teng

Published in

Journal of biological dynamics. Volume 20. Issue 1. Pages 2715881. Dec 31, 2026. Epub Aug 11, 2026.

Abstract

This paper proposes a within-host Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection model integrating M1/M2 macrophage conversion to explore macrophage polarization regulation in pulmonary infection with cellular immunity. The basic reproduction number $R_0$ is calculated, and criteria on the locally and globally asymptotic stability of infection-free equilibrium $E_0$ are established if $R_0<1$. Criteria on the existence and locally asymptotic stability of immune-free infection equilibrium $\overline{E}$ and immune-activated infection equilibrium $E^{\ast }$ are further obtained if $R_0>1$. Moreover, the model exhibits forward, backward and saddle-node bifurcations at $\overline{E}$, as well as Hopf bifurcation and chaotic dynamics at $E^{\ast }$, indicating that Mtb infection is highly sensitive to the dynamic shifts during macrophage polarization. Numerical simulations verify theoretical results, revealing that the effective conversion rates ${\gamma }_1$ and ${\gamma }_2$ between M1 and M2 macrophages are key regulators of Mtb infection progression, which may provide theoretical insights into tuberculosis latency and relapse, and offer testable predictions for immunotherapeutic strategies.

PMID:
42579631
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 12 Aug 2026.

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