(A) framework for immune system modeling based on petri nets

Abstract

The immune system is a complex system which is composed of many cells and the web of interactions between them. To understand the immune system comprehensively, it is necessary not only to make experiments but also to make models which can explain the experimental observations. With immune system models, we can make in silco experiments and predict the result of in vivo or in vitro experimetns for further studies. Until now, a lot of immune models were developed with differential equations or cellular automata, but they deal with one particular immune process or particular disease such as AIDS rather than the whole immune system. Although the immune response is well modeled piece by piece, to find new emergent properties in the system level, we need an integrated model. In this thesis, we made a framework for whole immune system modeling with a continuous Petri net. To show its usefulness, we made an integrated immune model which includes innate, humoral, and cellular immune responses with our framework. With this model, we simulated immune responses against antigen or virus infection and we could reproduce experimental observations. It is expected that many immune system models could be builded and integrated with the framework. With an integrated immune model, we could understand the immune system as a whole and find new emergent properties which could not be seen in seperate models.