Abstract
The definition of artificial immunity, realized through vaccinations, is nowadays a practice widely developed in order to eliminate cancer disease. The present paper deals with an improved version of a mathematical model recently analyzed and related to the competition between immune system cells and mammary carcinoma cells under the action of a vaccine (Triplex). The model describes in detail both the humoral and cellular response of the immune system to the tumor associate antigen and the recognition process between B cells, T cells and antigen presenting cells. The control of the tumor cells growth occurs through the definition of different vaccine protocols. The performed numerical simulations of the model are in agreement with in vivo experiments on transgenic mice.
Highlights
The immune system (IS) is a complex system of organs, cells and molecules whose main task is to protect living organisms from external pathogens such as viruses and bacteria
The outcome of the in vivo experiment has been mainly represented by the mice tumor-free survivals, and the Kaplan Meier survival curves [4] for each mice group treated with a given vaccination protocol have been built
Since the biological behavior of the involved entities may change in a consistent manner even from mouse to mouse, we mainly focused in qualitatively analyzing cancer cells behaviors and the response times of the principal outcomes of immune response, i.e. antibodies and cytotoxic T cells behaviors for the Chronic, Early and Untreated protocols
Summary
The immune system (IS) is a complex system of organs, cells and molecules whose main task is to protect living organisms from external pathogens such as viruses and bacteria. As stated by the immunosurveillance theory [1,2], biotechnology engineered naked mice (mice without immune system) show the developing of multiple variants of malignant tumors that are not usually visible in wild mice, suggesting that the immune system plays an important role against tumors. Most mutated malignant cells are recognized and eliminated by immune system mechanisms right after their birth, and tumors that usually arise are poorly immunogenic tumors, originating from malignant cells which escape from immune surveillance. Some tumors are caused by exogenous factors (e.g., smoke for lung cancer), and the elimination of the exogenous cause would in theory prevent the risk of developing the tumor. Many other tumors are caused by endogenous factors and their
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