Related papers: A Minimal Framework for Optimizing Vaccination Pro…
In order to target threatening pathogens, the adaptive immune system performs a continuous reorganization of its lymphocyte repertoire. Following an immune challenge, the B cell repertoire can evolve cells of increased specificity for the…
We analyze the interactions between division, mutation and selection in a simplified evolutionary model, assuming that the population observed can be classified into fitness levels. The construction of our mathematical framework is…
The mammalian adaptive immune system has evolved over millions of years to become an incredibly effective defense against foreign antigens. The adaptive immune system's humoral response creates plasma B cells and memory B cells, each with…
Affinity maturation of antibodies during immune responses is achieved by multiple rounds of somatic hypermutation and subsequent preferential selection of those B cells that express B cell receptors with improved binding characteristics for…
The population dynamics theory of B cells in a typical germinal center could play an important role in revealing how affinity maturation is achieved. However, the existing models encountered some conflicts with experiments. To resolve these…
Biological organisms have evolved a wide range of immune mechanisms to defend themselves against pathogens. Beyond molecular details, these mechanisms differ in how protection is acquired, processed and passed on to subsequent generations…
Mechanisms of immunity, and of the host-pathogen interactions in general are among the most fundamental problems of medicine, ecology, and evolution studies. Here, we present a microscopic, protein-level, sequence-based model of immune…
Many events in the vertebrate immune system are influenced by some element of chance. The objective of the present work is to describe affinity maturation of B lymphocytes (in which random events are perhaps the most characteristic), and to…
Affinity Maturation (AM) is the process through which the immune system is able to develop potent antibodies against new pathogens it encounters, and is at the base of the efficacy of vaccines. At its core AM is analogous to a Darwinian…
The antibody repertoire of each individual is continuously updated by the evolutionary process of B cell receptor mutation and selection. It has recently become possible to gain detailed information concerning this process through…
Recent advances in diffusion models have shown remarkable potential for antibody design, yet existing approaches apply uniform generation strategies that cannot adapt to each antigen's unique requirements. Inspired by B cell affinity…
We present a model that considers the maturation of the antibody population following primary antigen presentation as a global optimization problem. The trade-off that emerges from our model describes the balance between the safety of…
In vaccine development, the temporal profiles of relative abundance of subtypes of immune cells (T-cells) is key to understanding vaccine efficacy. Complex and expensive experimental studies generate very sparse time series data on this…
A central feature of vertebrate immune response is affinity maturation, wherein antibody-producing B cells undergo evolutionary selection in microanatomical structures called germinal centers, which form in secondary lymphoid organs upon…
When our immune system encounters foreign antigens (i.e., from pathogens), the B cells that produce our antibodies undergo a cyclic process of proliferation, mutation, and selection, improving their ability to bind to the specific antigen.…
How does immune system evolve functional proteins - potent antibodies - in such a short time? We address this question using a microscopic, protein-level, sequence-based model of humoral immune response with explicitly defined interactions…
The threat of avian influenza and the 2004-2005 influenza vaccine supply shortage in the United States has sparked a debate about optimal vaccination strategies to reduce the burden of morbidity and mortality caused by the influenza virus.…
Within the germinal center in follicles, B-cells proliferate, mutate and differentiate, while being submitted to a powerful selection~: a micro-evolutionary mechanism at the heart of adaptive immunity. A new foreign pathogen is confronted…
When the body gets infected by a pathogen or receives a vaccine dose, the immune system develops pathogen-specific immunity. Induced immunity decays in time and years after recovery/vaccination the host might become susceptible again.…
The adaptive immune system provides a diverse set of molecules that can mount specific responses against a multitude of pathogens. Memory is a key feature of adaptive immunity, which allows organisms to respond more readily upon…