Response functions in models for T cell activation

Alan Rendall

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

"Response functions in models for T cell activation"

Here I report on work with Yogesh Bali on response functions in models for T cell activation. How does the activity of T cells depend on the amount of antigen they are exposed to and the dissociation time of the binding of the antigen to the T cell receptor? We have studied a number of ODE models addressing this question using analytical and numerical techniques. Here I highlight two key results of this work. First, it can happen that for biologically reasonable parameter values an increase in the dissociation time can lead to a decrease in the response. Second, it can happen that the dependence of response on the control parameters exhibits more than one maximum.

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