Memory versus effector immune responses in oncolytic virotherapies
Abstract
The main priority when designing cancer immuno-therapies has been to seek viable biological mechanisms that lead to permanent cancer eradication or cancer control. Understanding the delicate balance between the role of effector and memory cells on eliminating cancer cells remains an elusive problem in immunology. Here we make an initial investigation into this problem with the help of a mathematical model for oncolytic virotherapy; although the model can in fact be made general enough to be applied also to other immunological problems. Our results show that long-term cancer control is associated with a large number of persistent effector cells (irrespective of the initial peak in effector cell numbers). However, this large number of persistent effector cells is sustained by a relatively large number of memory cells. Moreover, we show that cancer control from a dormant state cannot be predicted by the size of the memory population.
Citation
Macnamara , C K & Eftimie , R 2015 , ' Memory versus effector immune responses in oncolytic virotherapies ' , Journal of Theoretical Biology , vol. 377 , pp. 1-9 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2015.04.004
Publication
Journal of Theoretical Biology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0022-5193Type
Journal article
Description
R.E. acknowledges support from an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK) First Grant number EP/K033689/1Collections
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