Saturation effects on T-cell activation in a model of a multi-stage pathogen

Michael Shapiro; Edgar Delgado-Eckert

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arXiv · 1205.5735

Saturation effects on T-cell activation in a model of a multi-stage pathogen

Michael Shapiro·Edgar Delgado-Eckert

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Abstract

In previous work, we studied host response to a pathogen which uses a cycle of immunologically distinct stages to establish and maintain infection. We showed that for generic parameter values, the system has a unique biologically meaningful stable fixed point. That paper used a simplified model of T-cell activation, making proliferation depend linearly on antigen-T-cell encounters. Here we generalize the way in which T-cell proliferation depends on the sizes of the antigenic populations. In particular, we allow this response to become saturated at high levels of antigen. As a result, we show that this family of generalized models shares the same steady-state behavior properties with the simpler model contemplated in our previous work.

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Michael Shapiro, Edgar Delgado-Eckert. 2012-05-25. Saturation effects on T-cell activation in a model of a multi-stage pathogen. https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.5735

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