dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaGlassy Dynamics in the Adaptive Immune Response Prevents Autoimmune Disease
| Authors | Jun Sun, David J. Earl, Michael W. Deem |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0508020 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0508020 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.148104 |
Abstract
The immune system normally protects the human host against death by infection. However, when an immune response is mistakenly directed at self antigens, autoimmune disease can occur. We describe a model of protein evolution to simulate the dynamics of the adaptive immune response to antigens. Computer simulations of the dynamics of antibody evolution show that different evolutionary mechanisms, namely gene segment swapping and point mutation, lead to different evolved antibody binding affinities. Although a combination of gene segment swapping and point mutation can yield a greater affinity to a specific antigen than point mutation alone, the antibodies so evolved are highly cross-reactive and would cause autoimmune disease, and this is not the chosen dynamics of the immune system. We suggest that in the immune system a balance has evolved between binding affinity and specificity in the mechanism for searching the amino acid sequence space of antibodies.
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"abstract": "The immune system normally protects the human host against death by\ninfection. However, when an immune response is mistakenly directed at self\nantigens, autoimmune disease can occur. We describe a model of protein\nevolution to simulate the dynamics of the adaptive immune response to antigens.\nComputer simulations of the dynamics of antibody evolution show that different\nevolutionary mechanisms, namely gene segment swapping and point mutation, lead\nto different evolved antibody binding affinities. Although a combination of\ngene segment swapping and point mutation can yield a greater affinity to a\nspecific antigen than point mutation alone, the antibodies so evolved are\nhighly cross-reactive and would cause autoimmune disease, and this is not the\nchosen dynamics of the immune system. We suggest that in the immune system a\nbalance has evolved between binding affinity and specificity in the mechanism\nfor searching the amino acid sequence space of antibodies.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0508020",
"authors": [
"Jun Sun",
"David J. Earl",
"Michael W. Deem"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.PE",
"cond-mat.stat-mech",
"physics.bio-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.148104",
"title": "Glassy Dynamics in the Adaptive Immune Response Prevents Autoimmune Disease",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0508020"
},
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