How T-cells use large deviations to recognize foreign antigens

A stochastic model for the activation of T-cells is analysed. T-cells are part of the immune system and recognize foreign antigens against a background of the body’s own molecules. The model under consideration is a slight generalization of a model introduced by Van den Berg et al. (J Theor Biol 209:465–486, 2001), and is capable of explaining how this recognition works on the basis of rare stochastic events. With the help of a refined large deviation theorem and numerical evaluation it is shown that, for a wide range of parameters, T-cells can distinguish reliably between foreign antigens and self-antigens.