Effective immune-cell responses depend on collective decision-making mediated by diffusible intercellular signaling proteins called cytokines. Here, we designed a three-dimensional spatiotemporal modeling framework and a precise finite-element simulation setup to systematically investigate the origin and consequences of spatially inhomogeneous cytokine distributions in lymph nodes. We found that such inhomogeneities are critical for effective paracrine signaling, and they do not arise by diffusion and uptake alone, but rather depend on properties of the cell population such as an all-or-none behavior of cytokine secreting cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiliary tract cancers (BTC) are rare lethal malignancies arising along the biliary tree. Unfortunately, effective therapeutics are lacking and the prognosis remains dismal even for patients eligible for surgical resection. Therefore, novel therapeutic approaches along with early detection strategies and prognostic markers are urgently needed.
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