Publication

Mathematical modeling provides kinetic details of the human immune response to vaccination

Downloadable Content

Persistent URL
Last modified
  • 05/15/2025
Type of Material
Authors
    Dustin Le, University of Tennessee KnoxvilleJoseph Miller, Emory UniversityVitaly V. Ganusov, University of Tennessee Knoxville
Language
  • English
Date
  • 2014-01-01
Publisher
  • Frontiers Media
Publication Version
Copyright Statement
  • © 2014 Le, Miller and Ganusov.
License
Final Published Version (URL)
Title of Journal or Parent Work
Volume
  • 4
Issue
  • DEC
Start Page
  • 177
End Page
  • 177
Grant/Funding Information
  • This work was supported by the University of Tennessee and the American Heart Association grant (to Vitaly V. Ganusov).
Supplemental Material (URL)
Abstract
  • With major advances in experimental techniques to track antigen-specific immune responses many basic questions on the kinetics of virus-specific immunity in humans remain unanswered. To gain insights into kinetics of T and B cell responses in human volunteers we combine mathematical models and experimental data from recent studies employing vaccines against yellow fever and smallpox. Yellow fever virus-specific CD8 T cell population expanded slowly with the average doubling time of 2 days peaking 2.5 weeks post immunization. Interestingly, we found that the peak of the yellow fever-specific CD8 T cell response is determined by the rate of T cell proliferation and not by the precursor frequency of antigen-specific cells as has been suggested in several studies in mice. We also found that while the frequency of virus-specific T cells increases slowly, the slow increase can still accurately explain clearance of yellow fever virus in the blood. Our additional mathematical model describes well the kinetics of virus-specific antibody-secreting cell and antibody response to vaccinia virus in vaccinated individuals suggesting that most of antibodies in 3 months post immunization are derived from the population of circulating antibody-secreting cells. Taken together, our analysis provides novel insights into mechanisms by which live vaccines induce immunity to viral infections and highlight challenges of applying methods of mathematical modeling to the current, state-of-the-art yet limited immunological data.
Author Notes
  • Correspondence: Vitaly V. Ganusov, Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, M409 Walters Life Sciences, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA e-mail: vitaly.ganusov@gmail.com
Keywords
Research Categories
  • Health Sciences, Immunology
  • Health Sciences, Public Health

Tools

Relations

In Collection:

Items

Thumbnail Title File Description Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details Publication File - vj5d4.pdf Primary Content 2025-04-11 Public Download