Conceptual Immune Tolerance Group

The objective of the CITG is to encode current immune tolerance knowledge into a dynamic in silico model of the links between known molecular interactions. An object-oriented constraint propagation model of the many-to-many immune tolerance relationships will uncover knowledge gaps to guide further experimentation. The prototype in silico model of T cell activation is described here.

The CITG's object-oriented model (OOM) is a systematic representation of the complex network of immune tolerance molecular interactions. A Unified Modeling Language (UML) design of the OOM is shown below. The OOM consists of 5 super-classes (Experiment, Host, Cell, Molecule, and ConstraintPropagationNetwork), and one association class (Interaction). The next task is to populate the model with published information from the literature of the past 5-10 years.

The CITG model will be a valuable web-based interactive tool for non-computational immunologists and transplant researchers to:

  1. Identify important knowledge gaps in mechanisms of immune tolerance, for further experimentation, and
  2. Evaluate hypotheses such as knockout models and tolerance induction protocols prior to experimentation.

CITG Links
CITG Home
CITG Mission
CITG Lay Summary

CITG Links
CITG Home
CITG Mission
CITG Lay Summary