Figure 3

The time course of (a) innate and (b) adaptive immune response to B. bronchiseptica is shown by plotting the dynamics of the following representative nodes: EC: Epithelial cells, PIC: pro-inflammatory cytokines, C: Complement, IL12: Interleukin-12 (I and II indicate concentrations in different compartments) and PH: phagocytosis. Colors demonstrate the difference in the behavior of the nodes in case of normal (blue: wild type simulation) and perturbed (red: deletion simulation) host immunity. The perturbation is modeled by turning off the node representing B cells. The figure shows that innate immune responses are active for a longer period in the deletion simulation due to the persistence of bacteria. Plot b shows that complement is activated in normal simulations but not in the deletion simulation. The figure also shows the coupled fluctuations of the concentrations of IL12 in the two compartments. We can also see that the rate of phagocytosis is much slower in the deletion simulation.