Immune Network: An Example of Complex Adaptive Systems

The phenomenon of immunological memory has been known for a long time. But, the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. According to the theory of clonal selection the response to a specific invading antigen (e.g., bacteria) is offered by a specific clone of the cells. Some of the lymphocytes activated during the primary response remain dormant and keep circulating in the immune system for a long time carrying the memory of the encounter and, therefore, these long-lived cells are called memory cells. Proponents of the alternative network theory maintain that the immune response is offered by a "network" of clones in a collective manner. In recent years several possible scenarios of the "structure" and function of the immune network have been considered. We have developed mathematical models for describing the population dynamics of the immunocompetent cells in a unified manner. We have incorporated intra-clonal as well as inter-clonal interactions in a discrete formulation and also studied a continuum version of this model.