Affinity maturation for an optimal balance between long-term immune coverage and short-term resource constraints.

ABSTRACT: In order to target threatening pathogens, the adaptive immune system performs a continuous reorganization of its lymphocyte repertoire. Following an immune challenge, the B cell repertoire can evolve cells of increased specificity for the encountered strain. This process of affinity maturation generates a memory pool whose diversity and size remain difficult to predict. We assume that the immune system follows a strategy that maximizes the long-term immune coverage and minimizes the short-term metabolic costs associated with affinity maturation. This strategy is defined as an optimal decision process on a finite dimensional phenotypic space, where a preexisting population of cells is sequentially challenged with a neutrally evolving strain. We show that the low specificity and high diversi

SUBMITTER: Chardes V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8872716 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature