AGENT-BASED MODELSOR DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS:TWO WAYS TO LEARN ABOUT SELECTIONMECHANISMS IN GERMINAL CENTRES

摘要

The germinal centre reaction selects B cells from a large diversity of clones in orderto optimise the efficiency of an immune response. We discuss two rather differ-ent approaches to tackle the puzzle of selection mechanisms in germinal centreswith mathematical methods. A space-averaged differential equation approach iscompared to a space-resolved agent-based approach. The same two novel selectionmechanisms could be localised with both methods which increases the predictivepower of the result. In addition, the comparison of both methods allows interestingconclusions about the suitability of diverse approaches in Theoretical Biology.