Dependence of CD8 T Cell Response upon Antigen Load During Primary Infection : Analysis of Data from Yellow Fever Vaccination.

Dependence of CD8 T Cell Response upon Antigen Load During Primary Infection : Analysis of Data from Yellow Fever Vaccination. Bull Math Biol. 2019 Jun 04;: Authors: Moore JR, Ahmed H, McGuire D, Akondy R, Ahmed R, Antia R Abstract A major question in immunology is what role antigen load plays in determining the size of the CD8 immune response. Is the amount of antigen important during recruitment, proliferation, and/or memory formation? Animal studies have shown that antigen is only strictly required early during activation of T cells, but the importance of antigen at later timepoints is unclear. Using data from 24 volunteers infected with the yellow fever vaccine virus (YFV), we analyzed the dependence of T cell proliferation upon viral load. We found that volunteers with high viral load initially have greater T cell responses, but by 28 days post-vaccination those with lower viral load are able to 'catch-up.' Using differential equation modeling we show that this pattern is consistent with viral load only affecting recruitment (i.e., programmed proliferation) as opposed to affecting recruitment and proliferation (i.e., antigen-dependent proliferation). A quantitative understanding of the dependence of T cell dynamics on antigen load will be of use to modelers studying not only vaccination, but also cancer immunology and autoimmune disorders. PMID: 31165405 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Bulletin of Mathematical Biology - Category: Bioinformatics Authors: Tags: Bull Math Biol Source Type: research