Mathematical model of the primary CD8 T cell immune response: stability analysis of a nonlinear age-structured system (Q455744): Difference between revisions

The primary CD8 T cell immune response, due to a first encounter with a pathogen, happens in two phases: an expansion phase, with a fast increase of T cell count, followed by a contraction phase. This contraction phase is followed by the generation of memory cells. These latter are specific of the antigen and will allow a faster and stronger response when encountering the antigen for the second time. The authors propose a nonlinear mathematical model describing the CD8 T immune response to a primary infection, based on three nonlinear ordinary differential equations and one nonlinear age-structured partial differential equation, describing the evolution of CD8 T cell count and pathogen amount. They discuss in particular the roles and relevance of feedback controls that regulate the response. By reducing the original system to a nonlinear system with distributed delay, they prove the existence of a couple of steady states and analyze their stability properties. Then, the authors study a system with discrete delay and analyze the global stability properties of the steady states. Finally, the authors perform some numerical simulations in order to compare the mathematical results with experimental data.