Rockefeller University          Physics & Biology Seminar           November 10, 2009

Thymic Selection of T-cell Receptors

as an Extreme Value Problem

T-cell & APC

Abhishek Jha, Eric Huseby, Eugene Shakhnovich

Mehran Kardar (MIT)

Andrej Kosmrlj, Arup K. Chakraborty


Outline

I.       Introduction: T-cells, receptors, thymic selection                                       

II.      Model: Binding energy, selection, extreme values, statistical physics                                    

III.     Results: Amino-acid composition of TCRs, specificity in transgenic mice         

IV.     Analysis: Exterme Value Distribution, exact results         

V.      Summary: