A Population Dynamics Model for Clonal Diversity in a Germinal Center
Author(s)
Mesin, Luka; Victora, Gabriel D.; Amitai, Assaf; Kardar, Mehran; Chakraborty, Arup K
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Germinal centers (GCs) are micro-domains where B cells mature to develop high affinity antibodies. Inside a GC, B cells compete for antigen and T cell help, and the successful ones continue to evolve. New experimental results suggest that, under identical conditions, a wide spectrum of clonal diversity is observed in different GCs, and high affinity B cells are not always the ones selected. We use a birth, death and mutation model to study clonal competition in a GC over time. We find that, like all evolutionary processes, diversity loss is inherently stochastic. We study two selection mechanisms, birth-limited and death limited selection. While death limited selection maintains diversity and allows for slow clonal homogenization as affinity increases, birth limited selection results in more rapid takeover of successful clones. Finally, we qualitatively compare our model to experimental observations of clonal selection in mice.
Date issued
2017-09Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Medical Engineering & Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of PhysicsJournal
Frontiers in Microbiology
Publisher
Frontiers Research Foundation
Citation
Amitai, Assaf et al. “A Population Dynamics Model for Clonal Diversity in a Germinal Center.” Frontiers in Microbiology 8 (September 2017): 1603 © 2017 Amitai, Mesin, Victora, Kardar and Chakraborty
ISSN
1664-302X