Related papers: The relation of morphology and affinity maturation…
During germinal center reactions the appearance of two specific zones is observed: the dark and the light zone. Up to now, the origin and function of these zones are poorly understood. In the framework of a stochastic and discrete model…
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…
Germinal centres are anatomically defined lymphoid organ structures that mediate B cell affinity maturation and affect the quality of humoral immune responses. Mathematical models based on differential equations or agent-based simulations…
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…
We discuss the origin of two classes of germinal centers that have been observed during humoral immune responses: Some germinal centers develop very well and give rise to a large number of high affinity antibody producing plasma cells.…
During the germinal center reaction a characteristic morphology is developed. In the framework of a recently developed space-time-model for the germinal center a mechanism for the formation of dark and light zones has been proposed. 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…
Lymphocyte selection is a fundamental operation of adaptive immunity. In order to produce B-lymphocytes with a desired antigenic profile, a process of mutation-selection occurs in the germinal center, which is part of the lymph nodes. We…
B cells and the antibodies they produce are vital to health and survival, motivating research on the details of the mutational and evolutionary processes in the germinal centers (GC) from which mature B cells arise. It is known that B cells…
We introduce a novel, multi-scale model for affinity maturation, which aims to capture the intra-clonal, inter-clonal and epitope-specific organization of the B cell population in a germinal center. We describe the evolution of the B cell…
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…
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…
The affinity of antibodies (Abs) produced in vivo for their target antigens (Ags) is typically well below the maximum affinity possible. Nearly 25 years ago, Foote and Eisen explained how an 'affinity ceiling' could arise from constraints…
We introduce a new model for the dynamics of centroblasts and centrocytes in a germinal center. The model reduces the germinal center reaction to the elements considered as essential and embeds proliferation of centroblasts, point mutations…
This work explores the morphology and dynamical properties of cores within rich superclusters, highlighting their role as transitional structures in the large-scale structure of the Universe. Using projected and radial velocity…
The physical interpretation of the functioning of the adaptive immune system, which has been thoroughly characterized on genetic and molecular levels, provides a unique opportunity to define an adaptive self-organizing biological system in…
How does the clustering of galaxies depend on their inner properties like morphological type and luminosity? We address this question in the mathematical framework of marked point processes and clarify the notion of luminosity and…
We study the galaxy morphology-luminosity-environmental relation and its redshift evolution using a spectroscopic sample of galaxies in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS). In the redshift range of $0.4\leq z\leq1.0$ we…
We describe the representation of the chemical affinity between the antigen-combining site of the immunoglobulin molecule and the antigen molecule as the probability of the two molecules existing in a bound state. Our model is based on the…