Kesmir, De Boer, 1999

Model Status

This is the original unchecked version of the model imported from the previous CellML model repository, 24-Jan-2006.

Model Structure

Affinity maturation during the humoral immune response to T cell-dependent Ag occurs in germinal centres (GCs). GCs are highly dynamic areas where B lymphocytes rapidly divide and somatic cells mutate and are selected for. Ag is stored in the form of immune complexes on follicular dendritic cells. Ag is the main selective agent during a GC reaction as mutated B cells have to bind Ag to avoid apoptosis. Following this AG-based selection of B cells, the B cells have to interact with the GC T cells in order to improve their chance of survival.

In this current study, Kesmir and De Boer extend previous mathematical models of GC reactions by including:

• the cell division history of the centroblasts;

• the Ag uptake by centrocytes; and

• T cell dynamics.

Focusing on GC kinetics, rather than affinity maturation, the authors show that:

• the main effect of T cells on GC kinetics is confined to the early stages of the GC reaction;

• the duration of the reaction is largely determined by Ag availability and only slightly by the availability of T cell help; and

• both the Ag concentration and the half-life of the immune complexes have a negligible effect on the GC kinetics.

A schematic of the model can be seen in the figure below.

The complete original paper reference is cited below:

A Mathematical Model on Germinal Center Kinetics and Termination, Can Kesmir and Rob J. De Boer, 1999, The Journal of Immunology , 163, 2463-2469. (Full text (HTML) and PDF versions of the article are available on the The Journal of Immunology website.) PubMed ID: 10452981

The model GC reaction.