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Self-nonself discrimination due to immunological nonlinearities: the analysis of a series of models by numerical methods. (English) Zbl 0613.92008

In a set of models incorporating a very amount of immunological complexity, we investigate processes by which T lymphocytes ’learn’ to discriminate self from nonself. The models all incorporate the following immunological data: (1) T lymphocytes produce their own growth factor (IL2), (2) T lymphocyte effectors proliferate in response to IL2 and antigen, and (3) T lymphocyte effectors become memory cells whenever antigenic restimulation is poor.
We first analyse a fairly simple model, i.e. an immune system in which cytotoxic effects (CTL) and helper T cells (HTL, the cells that produce IL2) are assumed to be identical. This simple model accounts for self- nonself discrimination in the absence of any down-regulatory interactions (i.e. suppression).
Secondly, we analyse this tolerance process in various more complex models that incorporate CTL and HTL as separate populations. Such an extension of the model adds interesting new features, because the populations now compete for antigen and IL2.

MSC:

92C50 Medical applications (general)
92Cxx Physiological, cellular and medical topics
92-08 Computational methods for problems pertaining to biology
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