Recovery from polyclonal tolerance: simulation analysis.

Mathematical model of immunological tolerance was applied to polyclonal B cell tolerance induced in mice by treatment with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) followed by the application of cyclophosphamide (CY). Satisfactory simulation results were obtained with the life-span of lymphocytes shorter than the experimentally observed one. It could be assumed that the massive decrease of lymphocyte population in polyclonal tolerance would elicit a compensatory reaction. Therefore it was postulated that some kind of feedback mechanism increased the influx of B lymphocytes. Having this factor included in the model, satisfactory agreement of the simulation results with experimental data was obtained for experimentally determined life-span of B cells.