Inequalitites during life and death of T cells

T cell selection during an immune response is being increasing observed with modern techniques, eg the (specific) T cell receptor (TCR) chain useage and its diversity alters throughout an immune response, and TCR avidity for the agonist ligands undergoes distinct focusing from a primary to secondary response. We explore physiologically structured models of T cell growth and T cell death to explain these observations. We demonstrate that significant selection of T cells can occur through heterogeneous expression of cytokine receptors and competition for growth/survival cytokines.