COMPETITION AND CLONOTYPE SELECTION IN LARGE ENSEMBLES OF IMMUNE T-CELLS
Clonotype competition process has been studied in the mathematical model of multi-component immune T-cell ensemble. The competition between clonotypes for survival stimuli has been shown to lead to the extinction of a substantial part of them. The stationary value of the total T-cell number has been found and the dependence of the clonotype size distribution (in particular, the part of the extinct clonotypes) on the model parameters has been studied. The scaling law for the extinct clonotype part with the size growth of the system has been found. Physiological implications of the results obtained are discussed.