title: Competitive control of the self-renewing T cell repertoire.
abstract: We develop a mathematical model for the self-renewing part of the T cell repertoire. Assuming that self-renewing T cells have to be stimulated by immunogenic MHC-peptide complexes presented on the surfaces of antigen-presenting cells, we derive a model of T cell growth in which competition for MHC-peptide complexes limits T cell clone sizes and regulates the total number of self-renewing T cells in the animal. We show that for a sufficient diversity and/or degree of cross-reactivity, the total T cell number hardly depends upon the diversity of the T cell repertoire or the diversity of the set of presented peptides. Conversely, for repertoires of lower diversity and/or cross-reactivity, steady-state total T cell numbers may be limited by the diversity of the T cells. This provides a possible explanation for the limited repertoire expansion in some, but not all, mouse T cell re-constitution experiments. We suggest that the competitive interactions described by our model underlie the normal T cells numbers observed in transgenic mice, germ-free mice and various knockout mice.
authors.affiliation: Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: De Boer
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Perelson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000915:Antibody Affinity; D001667:Binding, Competitive / Q000276:immunology; D002455:Cell Division / Q000276:immunology; D002999:Clone Cells; D003429:Cross Reactions; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D018448:Models, Immunological; D010455:Peptides / Q000276:immunology; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides