Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology
Volume 2008 (2008), Article ID 743690, 9 pages
doi:10.1155/2008/743690
Research Article

Mathematical Modeling of Cytotoxic Lymphocyte-Mediated Immune Response to Hepatitis B Virus Infection

Changjiang Long,1,2 Huan Qi,2 and Sheng-Hu Huang3,4

1School of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China
2Institute of Systems Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China
3The Saban Research Institute, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90027, USA
4University of Southern California University Hospital, Los Angeles, CA 90027, USA

Received 1 September 2007; Accepted 23 December 2007

Academic Editor: Daniel Howard

Copyright © 2008 Changjiang Long et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Nowak's model of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has been extensively and successfully used to simulate the interaction between HIV and cytotoxic lymphocyte- (CTL-) mediated immune response. However, this model is not available for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. As the enhanced recruitment of virus-specific CTLs into the liver has been an important novel concept in the pathogenesis of hepatitis B, we develop a specific mathematical model analyzing the relationship between HBV and the CTL-mediated immune response, and the indicator of the liver cell damage, alanine aminotransferase (ALT). The stability condition of the complete recovery equilibrium point at which HBV will be eliminated entirely from the body is discussed. A different set of parameters is used in the simulation, and the results show that the model can interpret the wide variety of clinical manifestations of HBV infection. The model suggests that a rapid and vigorous CTL response is required for resolution of HBV infection.