Modelagem computacional da resposta imune à vacina contra febre amarela

Abstract

An effective yellow fever vaccine has been available since 1937. Nevertheless, questions regarding its use remain poorly understood, such as the ideal dose to confer immunity against the disease, the need for booster dose, the optimal immunization schedule for immunocompetent, immunosuppressed, and children, among other issues. The objective of this work is to demonstrate that computational tools can be used to simulate different scenarios regarding yellow fever vaccination and the immune response of the individuals to this vaccine, thus assisting the response of some of these open questions. In this context, this work presents a computational model of the human immune response to vaccination against yellow fever. The model takes into account important cells and molecules of the human immune system such as antigen presenting cells, B and T lymphocytes, memory cells and antibodies. The model was able to replicate the levels of antibodies obtained experimentally in different vaccination scenarios, allowing a quantitative validation with experimental data. In addition, some behaviors of the immune response described in the literature were reproduced qualitatively. The immune responses of primovacinated, revaccinated adult individuals with autoimmune diseases under immunomodulatory therapy were simulated. In addition, the behavior observed in the primary vaccination of children and the levels of antibodies produced by the administration of smaller doses of vaccines were reproduced, compared to those obtained by the reference dose.