Communication network model of the immune system identifies the impact of interactions with SARS-CoV-2 proteins

Interactions between SARS-CoV-2 and human proteins (SARS-CoV-2 PPIs) cause information transfer through biochemical pathways that contribute to the immunopathology of COVID-19. Here, we present a communication network model of the immune system to compute the information transferred by the viral proteins using the available SARS-CoV-2 PPIs data. The amount of transferred information depends on the reference state of the immune system, or the state without SARS-CoV-2 PPIs, and can quantify how many variables of the immune system are controlled by the viral proteins. The information received by the immune system proteins from the viral proteins is useful to identify the biological processes (BPs) susceptible to dysregulation, and also to estimate the duration of viral PPIs necessary for the dysregulation to occur. We found that computing the drop in information from viral PPIs due to drugs provides a direct measure for the efficacy of therapies.