Artificial in vivo antigen presentation by the APCs and subsequent T-cell activation: a feasibility analysis

Abstract

Inappropriate antigen presentation by the antigenpresenting cells (APCs) is a cause of various diseases. One of the ways to combat these diseases is to immobilize the APCs near the infected tissue or a tissue which is susceptible to an antigen. The antigen is presented by the APCs present in the immobilized form on an implant and these upon binding to TH-cells result in triggering of a cascade of events as part of the natural immune response leading to the destruction of the antigen. This system has been modeled as a dialysis bag containing immobilized receptors inside the bag and the ligand diffusing out of the bag.The simulations show that by using the implant, the concentration of the ligand that has diffused into the tissue matrix can be substantially reduced and by suitably choosing the coupler size, the TH-cells can also effectively be activated.