Simulation of T-cell Movement using Random Walk

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyse and simulate the searching strategy of T-cells using Random Walk model. T-cell is a type of white blood cell which plays a central role in cell-mediated immunity. They detect antigens and triggers the immune responses. Verification of random walk properties has been carried out in the raw data for examination. The source data contains 30 sets of cells with their sampled coordinates within 90 minutes. The variance ratio test has been implemented to examine the data. A conclusion of over 65% of the cell data are following the Random Walk model with a 95% confidence interval has been drawn. Simulation has been carried out to imitate the time or number of T-cells needed to cover certain area for detection of antigen. Only cell data following Random Walk properties have adopted in modelling the step size as well as the direction of movement. The non -parametric curve fitting method has been implemented to generated cumulative density function(CDF). The result shows that single T-cells with required more time to obtain a higher coverage over certain area compared to multiple T-cells which required less time.