Moving H5N1 studies into the era of systems biology

The dynamics of H5N1 influenza virus pathogenesis are multifaceted and can be seen as an emergent property that cannot be comprehended without looking at the system as a whole. In past years, most of the high-throughput studies on H5N1–host interactions have focused on the host transcriptomic response, at the cellular or the lung tissue level. These studies pointed out that the dynamics and magnitude of the innate immune response and immune cell infiltration is critical to H5N1 pathogenesis. However, viral–host interactions are multidimensional and advances in technologies are creating new possibilities to systematically measure additional levels of ’omic data (e.g. proteomic, metabolomic, and RNA profiling) at each temporal and spatial scale (from the single cell to the organism) of the host response. Natural host genetic variation represents another dimension of the host response that determines pathogenesis. Systems biology models of H5N1 disease aim at understanding and predicting pathogenesis through integration of these different dimensions by using intensive computational modeling. In this review, we describe the importance of ’omic studies for providing a more comprehensive view of infection and mathematical models that are being developed to integrate these data. This review provides a roadmap for what needs to be done in the future and what computational strategies should be used to build a global model of H5N1 pathogenesis. It is time for systems biology of H5N1 pathogenesis to take center stage as the field moves toward a more comprehensive view of virus–host interactions.