Modeling immune reactivity in secondary lymphoid organs

Models of the dynamical interactions important in generating immune reactivity have generally assumed that the immune system is a single well-stirred compartment. Here we explicitly take into account the compartmentalized nature of the immune system and show that qualitative conclusions, such as the stability of the immune steady state, depend on architectural details. We examine a simple model idiotypic network involving only two types of B cells and antibody molecules. We show, for model parameters used by De Boeret al. (1990,Chem. Eng. Sci. 45, 2375–2382), that the immune steady state is unstable in a one compartmental model but stable in a two compartment model that contains both a lymphoid organ, such as the spleen, and the circulatory system. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy.