Related papers: A graph model for the evolution of specificity in …
The host immune response can often efficiently suppress a virus infection, which may lead to selection for immune-resistant viral variants within the host. For example, during HIV infection, an array of CTL immune response populations…
The adaptive and innate branches of the vertebrate immune system work in close collaboration to protect organisms from harmful pathogens. As an organism ages its immune system undergoes immunosenescence, characterized by declined…
The immune system can be thought as a complex network of different interacting elements. A cellular automaton, defined in shape-space, was recently shown to exhibit self-regulation and complex behavior and is, therefore, a good candidate to…
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…
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 develop a stochastic model to study the specific response of the immune system. The model is based on the dynamical interaction between Regulatory and Effector CD4+ T cells in the presence of Antigen Presenting Cells inside a lymphatic…
In this work we use belief-propagation techniques to study the equilibrium behaviour of a minimal model for the immune system comprising interacting T and B clones. We investigate the effect of the so-called idiotypic interactions among…
We consider a minimalistic dynamic model of the idiotypic network of B-lymphocytes. A network node represents a population of B-lymphocytes of the same specificity (idiotype), which is encoded by a bitstring. The links of the network…
We are interested in modeling theoretical immunology within a statistical mechanics flavor: focusing on the antigen-independent maturation process of B-cells, in this paper we try to revise the problem of self vs non-self discrimination by…
Noisy data and the similarity in the ocular appearances caused by different ophthalmic pathologies pose significant challenges for an automated expert system to accurately detect retinal diseases. In addition, the lack of knowledge…
The adaptive immune system is a natural diagnostic and therapeutic. It recognizes threats earlier than clinical symptoms manifest and neutralizes antigen with exquisite specificity. Recognition specificity and broad reactivity is enabled…
We consider the problem of self tolerance in the frame of a minimalistic model of the idiotypic network. A node of this network represents a population of B lymphocytes of the same idiotype which is encoded by a bit string. The links of the…
We present a model for the evolution of networks of occupied sites on undirected regular graphs. At every iteration step in a parallel update I randomly chosen empty sites are occupied and occupied sites having degree outside of a given…
The evolution of the adaptive immune system is characterized by changes in the relative abundances of the B- and T-cell clones that make up its repertoires. To fully capture this evolution, we need to describe the complex dynamics of the…
An essential feature of the adaptive immune system is the proliferation of antigen-specific lymphocytes during an immune reaction to form a large pool of effector cells. This proliferation must be regulated to ensure an effective response…
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.…
This contribution is devoted to a new model of HIV multiplication motivated by the patent of one of the authors. We take into account the antigenic diversity through what we define "antigenicity", whether of the virus or of the adapted…
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…
The adaptive immune system constantly remodels its lymphocyte repertoire for better protection against future pathogens. Its ability to improve antigen recognition on the fly relies on somatic mutation and selective expansion of B…
Immune cells learn about their antigenic targets using tactile sense: during recognition, a highly organized yet dynamic motif, named immunological synapse, forms between immune cells and antigen-presenting cells (APCs). Via synapses,…