Huynh Giao T, Adler Frederick R
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Oakland University, 2200 N. Squirrel Road, Rochester, MI 48309-4401, USA.
Math Med Biol. 2012 Sep;29(3):245-61. doi: 10.1093/imammb/dqr007. Epub 2011 Jun 22.
Most people get Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection at young age and are asymptomatic. Primary EBV infection in adolescents and young adults, however, often leads to infectious mononucleosis (IM) with symptoms including fever, fatigue and sore throat that can persist for months. Expansion in the number of CD8(+) T cells, especially against EBV lytic proteins, are the main cause of these symptoms. We propose a mathematical model for the regulation of EBV infection within a host to address the dependence of IM on age. This model tracks the number of virus, infected B cell and epithelial cell and CD8(+) T-cell responses to the infection. We use this model to investigate three hypotheses for the high incidence of IM in teenagers and young adults: saliva and antibody effects that increase with age, high cross-reactive T-cell responses and a high initial viral load. The model supports the first two of these hypotheses and suggests that variation in host antibody responses and the complexity of the pre-existing cross-reactive T-cell repertoire, both of which depend on age, may play important roles in the etiology of IM.
大多数人在年轻时感染爱泼斯坦-巴尔病毒（EBV）且无症状。然而，青少年和年轻成年人的原发性EBV感染通常会导致传染性单核细胞增多症（IM），其症状包括发热、疲劳和喉咙痛，这些症状可能会持续数月。CD8(+) T细胞数量的增加，尤其是针对EBV裂解蛋白的T细胞数量增加，是这些症状的主要原因。我们提出了一个用于调节宿主体内EBV感染的数学模型，以解决IM对年龄的依赖性问题。该模型跟踪病毒、受感染的B细胞和上皮细胞的数量以及CD8(+) T细胞对感染的反应。我们使用这个模型来研究关于青少年和年轻成年人中IM高发病率的三个假设：随年龄增长而增加的唾液和抗体效应、高交叉反应性T细胞反应以及高初始病毒载量。该模型支持前两个假设，并表明宿主抗体反应的变化以及预先存在的交叉反应性T细胞库的复杂性（两者均取决于年龄）可能在IM的病因学中起重要作用。
