Influence of antigenic mutations in time evolution of the immune memory - A dynamic modeling

Abstract

In this paper, we study the behavior of immune memory against antigenic mutation. Using a dynamic model proposed in previous studies, we have performed simulations of several inoculations, where in each virtual sample the viral population undergoes mutations. Our results suggest that the sustainability of the immunizations is dependent on viral variability and that the memory lifetimes are not random, what contradicts what was suggested by recent works. We show that what may cause an apparent random behavior of the immune memory is the antigenic variability. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.