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Reassessing Germinal Centre Reaction Concepts

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Mathematical Models and Immune Cell Biology

Abstract

To determine the number of B cells seeding germinal centres, different authors have used immunohistology of germinal centre sections in conjunction with assuming a binomial distribution of the fractions of two phenotypically distinct B cell populations participating in a given immune response. This approach further assumed that germinal centres are closed to continuous B cell entry. Using such a model, it has been concluded that germinal centres contain two to eight clones, a figure that is usually taken and cited as being essentially correct. The present re-evaluation of those and related experiments lead to an extended mathematical model. This model includes an estimation of errors created by data sampling, two new parameters that take into account possible mistakes in classification of single population GC sections, and the likely variability in the number of seeding B cells. Fitting this new model to experimental data resulted in an estimated mean number of ⟨n⟩ = 23–37 seeder B cells.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants SAF2007-63152 (MICINN, Spain) and PIRSES-GA-2008-230665 (7th FP, EC) to JF and by the BMBF (grant 0315005B) and the VolkswagenStiftung to MOG. The authors wish to thank R. Ribeiro and V. Ganusov for critical reading of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Edificio de Ciencias Experimentáis, Universidade de Vigo, Campus As Lagoas-Marcosende, 36310, Vigo, Spain

    Jose Faro

  2. Estudos Avançados de Oeiras, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Apartado 14, 2781-901, Oeiras, Portugal

    Jose Faro

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  1. Jose Faro
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  2. Michal Or-Guil
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Correspondence to Jose Faro .

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  1. School of Mathematics, Dept. Applied Mathematics, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom

    Carmen Molina-París

  2. School of Mathematics, Dept. Applied Mathematics, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom

    Grant Lythe

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Faro, J., Or-Guil, M. (2011). Reassessing Germinal Centre Reaction Concepts. In: Molina-París, C., Lythe, G. (eds) Mathematical Models and Immune Cell Biology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7725-0_12

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