High epitope expression levels increase competition between T cells.
High epitope expression levels increase competition between T cells.
Blog Article
Both theoretical predictions and experimental findings suggest that T cell populations can compete with each other.There is some debate on whether T cells compete for aspecific stimuli, such as access to the surface on antigen-presenting cells (APCs) or mr robot funko for specific stimuli, such as their cognate epitope ligand.We have developed an individual-based computer simulation model to study T cell competition.Our model shows that the expression level of foreign epitopes per APC determines whether T cell competition is mainly for specific or aspecific stimuli.
Under low epitope expression, competition is mainly for the specific epitope stimuli, and, hence, different epitope-specific T cell populations coexist readily.However, if epitope expression levels are high, aspecific competition becomes more important.Such between-specificity competition can lead to competitive exclusion between different epitope-specific T cell populations.Our model refletor ourolux 100w allows us to delineate the circumstances that facilitate coexistence of T cells of different epitope specificity.
Understanding mechanisms of T cell coexistence has important practical implications for immune therapies that require a broad immune response.