Modelling of the Cell-Mediated Immune Response to Epstein Barr Virus

Epstein Barr is a virus that infects the B cells of the immune system expressing certain proteins that can cause the B lymphocytes to escape apoptosis leading to lymphoma’s and others. The immune system reacts by producing armed effector Tcells that eliminate the infected lymphocytes. Due to the destructive nature of Tcells, its production must be monitored. In this paper, a model was built defining the various biochemical events leading to the priming of the T cell, giving a time series for the changes in the concentrations of all the species involved in T cell priming and deducing the species most relevant in the production of activated Tcells needed to wipe out this virus. To do this, literature containing detailed information on priming of T cell were collected from immunology books, journals and websites. A cartoon model describing the Tcell priming events was then built from the information gathered from literature.