Cyclical neutropenia : data analysis and modeling study

We review the salient clinical and laboratory features of cyclical neutropenia (CN) and other periodic hematological disorders, and the insight into these diseases afforded by mathematical modeling. Using Lomb periodogram analysis, we show that occurrence of significant cycling in the serial blood counts of neutropenic patients is very prevalent and the dynamics of all the cell lineages in CN can be modified by the administration of recombinant granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF). The analysis of the serial blood counts in the animal model of CN---the grey collie (GC), reveals a complex pattern of oscillations that we could reproduce with a model of hematopoiesis combining a peripheral control of granulopoiesis through G-CSF, together with an oscillatory input from the pluripotential stem cell. Both the human and GC data analysis suggests that CN results from a complex interaction between the stem cells, the mature cells and G-CSF, and that the regulation of the different blood cell lineages are strongly linked together