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Conditions for pathogen elimination by immune systems

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Summary

A continuous harvest effort can lead a population to extinction. How an “unconscious” immune system would perpetrate such an effort in order to eliminate a self-replicating antigen (a pathogen) becomes an intriguing problem if the system responses are functions of the pathogen population: the responses cannot be a continuous effort as the pathogen vanishes. On theoretical grounds, we show some qualities an immune response must have to support pathogen elimination. Then, three specific mechanisms are addressed: a pathogen-independent positive feedback loop among the responding cells of the system (e.g., B-lymphocyte and T-helper); the persistence of antigen bound to presenting cells; and the programmed expansion/contraction of a pool of responding cells. The maintenance of responding cells due to these mechanisms is the essential feature to the effective clearance of self-replicating agents. Thus, evolutionarily, the primary function of a helper lymphocyte would be to amplify a response and the primary function of memory would be the very elimination of pathogens.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, da Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matao tr. 14, 321, 05508-900, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    José Guilherme Chaui-Berlinck

  2. Departamento de Imunologia, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas, da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil

    José Alexandre Marzagão Barbuto

  3. Departamento de Pós-Graduação, Engenharia Elétrica da Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Brazil

    Luiz Henrique Alves Monteiro

  4. Departamento de Engenharia de Telecomunicações e Controle da Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil

    Luiz Henrique Alves Monteiro

Authors
  1. José Guilherme Chaui-Berlinck
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  2. José Alexandre Marzagão Barbuto
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  3. Luiz Henrique Alves Monteiro
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Correspondence to José Guilherme Chaui-Berlinck.

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Chaui-Berlinck, J.G., Barbuto, J.A.M. & Monteiro, L.H.A. Conditions for pathogen elimination by immune systems. Theory Biosci. 123, 195–208 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.thbio.2004.01.001

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