Simulating the Dynamics of T Cell Subsets Throughout the Lifetime

TL;DR

This paper develops and validates a simulation model of T regulatory cell dynamics across the human lifespan, highlighting age-related shifts and integrating new biological data to improve understanding of immune aging.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation framework for Treg dynamics that incorporates recent data and discusses its potential to elucidate immune aging processes.

Findings

Simulation shows Treg precursor and mature cell inversion at around 20 years

Model output differs from original laboratory data

Incorporation of new data enhances model relevance

Abstract

It is widely accepted that the immune system undergoes age-related changes correlating with increased disease in the elderly. T cell subsets have been implicated. The aim of this work is firstly to implement and validate a simulation of T regulatory cell (Treg) dynamics throughout the lifetime, based on a model by Baltcheva. We show that our initial simulation produces an inversion between precursor and mature Treys at around 20 years of age, though the output differs significantly from the original laboratory dataset. Secondly, this report discusses development of the model to incorporate new data from a cross-sectional study of healthy blood donors addressing balance between Treys and Th17 cells with novel markers for Treg. The potential for simulation to add insight into immune aging is discussed.