Understanding memory B cell selection

DOI10.1016/J.JTBI.2021.110905zbMATH Open1472.92085arXiv2012.05817OpenAlexW3200378548MaRDI QIDQ2235582FDOQ2235582

Authors: Stephen Lindsly, Cooper Stansbury, Indika Rajapakse, Maya R. Gupta 

Publication date: 21 October 2021

Published in: Journal of Theoretical Biology (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The mammalian adaptive immune system has evolved over millions of years to become an incredibly effective defense against foreign antigens. The adaptive immune system's humoral response creates plasma B cells and memory B cells, each with their own immunological objectives. The affinity maturation process is widely viewed as a heuristic to solve the global optimization problem of finding B cells with high affinity to the antigen. However, memory B cells appear to be purposely selected earlier in the affinity maturation process and have lower affinity. We propose that this memory B cell selection process may be an approximate solution to two optimization problems: optimizing for affinity to similar antigens in the future despite mutations or other minor differences, and optimizing to warm start the generation of plasma B cells in the future. We use simulations to provide evidence for our hypotheses, taking into account data showing that certain B cell mutations are more likely than others. Our findings are consistent with memory B cells having high-affinity to mutated antigens, but do not provide strong evidence that memory B cells will be more useful than selected naive B cells for seeding the secondary germinal centers.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.05817

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zbMATH Keywords

warm startgerminal centeradversarial mutationmemory B cellplasma B cell

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Pathology, pathophysiology (92C32)

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