SIMMUNE, a tool for simulating and analyzing immune system behavior

TL;DR

SIMMUNE is a versatile simulation tool that models immune system behavior at a microscopical level, enabling analysis of emergent structures and contexts with minimal assumptions, applicable beyond immunology.

Contribution

Introduces SIMMUNE, a flexible simulation platform for immune system agents based on cellular interactions, facilitating multiscale analysis of emergent immune structures.

Findings

Effective simulation of immune agent interactions

Identification of immunological contexts with minimal assumptions

Potential applications beyond immune system modeling

Abstract

We present a new approach to the simulation and analysis of immune system behavior. The simulations that can be done with our software package called SIMMUNE are based on immunological data that describe the behavior of immune system agents (cells, molecules) on a microscopial (i.e. agent-agent interaction) scale by defining cellular stimulus-response mechanisms. Since the behavior of the agents in SIMMUNE can be very flexibly configured, its application is not limited to immune system simulations. We outline the principles of SIMMUNE's multiscale analysis of emergent structure within the simulated immune system that allow the identification of immunological contexts using minimal a priori assumptions about the higher level organization of the immune system.