Download Pattern Recognition with an AIS

Computational Immunology
and
Immunological Computation
Giuseppe Nicosia
Cineca
High Performance Systems
Talk Outline
1.
2.
3.
4.
Tour of Immunology.
Computational Immunology.
Immunological Computation: what
are artificial immune systems?
Future directions.
Part I
Tour of Immunology
“The Immune System is a
complex adaptive system of cells
and molecules, distributed
throughout our body, that provide
us with a basic defense against
pathogenic organisms”
1. A gentle introduction to the Immune System
What problem is it that the IS solves?
The IS uses distributed detection to solve the problem of
distinguishing between self and nonself, which are elements
of the body, and foreign elements respectively (actually, the
success of the IS is more dependent on its ability to
distinguish between harmful nonself, and everything else).
Why is this a hard problem?
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because there are so many patterns in nonself, on the order of
1016, that have to be distinguished from 106 self patterns;
because the environment is highly distributed;
because the body must continue to function all the time;
because resources are scarce.
How does the
IS solve this
problem?
Most elementary is the skin,
which is the first barrier to
infection. Another barrier is
physiological where
conditions such as pH and
temperature provide
inappropriate living conditions
for foreign organisms. Once
pathogens have entered the
body, they are dealt with by
the innate IS and by the
acquired immune response
system.
IS defenses are multi-layered
Lymphocytes
•
The acquired immune response consists of certain
types of white blood cells, called lymphocytes, that
cooperate to detect pathogens and assist in the
destruction of those pathogens. These lymphocytes
can be thought of as detectors which are tiny
compared to the body.
•
Detection and elimination of pathogens is a
consequence of millions of small cells - detectors interacting through simple, very localised rules, to
give rise to a truly efficient distributed system.
2. How do lymphocytes detect pathogens?
Pathogens are detected
when a molecular bond is
established between the
pathogen and receptors that
cover the surface of the
lymphocyte. Because of the
large size and complexity
of most pathogens, only
parts of the pathogen,
discrete sites called
epitopes, get bound to the
lymphocyte receptors.
Lymphoctyes recognize
pathogens by binding to them.
Some Definitions
Similarity Subset. A lymphocyte has approximately 105 receptors on its
surface, but because all of these receptors have the same structure (a
lymphocyte is monoclonal), a single lymphocyte can only bind to
structurally related epitopes. These structurally related epitopes define
the similarity subset that the lymphocyte detects.
Affinity. The number of receptors that bind to pathogens will determine
the affinity that the lymphocyte has for a given pathogen. If a bond is
very likely to occur, then many receptors will bind to pathogen epitopes,
resulting in a high affinity for that pathogen; if a bond is unlikely to
occur, then few receptors will bind to epitopes, and the lymphocyte will
have a low affinity for that pathogen.
Affinity threshold. Lymphocytes can only be activated by a pathogen if
the lymphocyte's affinity for the pathogen exceeds a certain affinity
threshold.
3. Generating Receptor Diversity
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Because detection is carried out by binding with
nonself, the IS must have a sufficient diversity
of lymphocyte receptors to ensure that at least
some lymphocytes can bind to any given
pathogen.
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Generating sufficient diversity is a problem
because the human body only makes on the order
of 106 different proteins, which the IS must use
to construct receptors that can recognize
potentially 1016 different proteins or patterns.
How does the IS produce the
required diversity of receptors?
One source of this diversity:
Lymphocyte receptors are constructed from inherited gene
segments or libraries. The receptors are made by randomly
recombining elements from different libraries, resulting in
an exponential number of possible combinations, and
hence a huge diversity of receptor structures. This
combinatorial explosion allows the IS to make potentially
1015 different kinds of receptors, although the actual
number of distinct receptors present in the body at any
given time is far less than this. Estimates place the number
at between 108 and 1012 distinct receptors present at one
instance.
Receptor diversity is generated by randomly
recombining parts of inherited gene segments.
This process allow
each B cell to
create an antibody
receptor by
choosing among a
number of
interchangeable
parts that are
present in the
DNA.
Somatic Mutation
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The other source of diversity, wich operates
after a mature B cell has been stimulated by an
antigen, is somatic mutation:
“a B cell can introduce point mutations into
the genes that code for its previously chosen
antibody receptor”.
With somatic mutation, the possible number of
Ab receptors may be as high as 1016.
If the diversity of receptors present is several orders
of magnitude less than the diversity of pathogen
patterns, how does the IS detect most pathogens?

By using approximate binding: each
monoclonal lymphocyte can bind to
several variants of a pathogen, i.e. it can
recognize a similarity subset of patterns.
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By being very dynamic: lymphocytes
are very short-lived (2 to 3 days) and are
constantly replaced (100 million new
lymphocytes are generated every day).
4. Affinity Maturation
To cover the space of all possible nonself patterns
adequately requires a huge diversity of
lymphocyte receptors, with relatively low affinity
thresholds. This enables the IS to detect just
about any pathogen, but the detection may take
some time, during which the pathogen will be
replicating and causing harm. The IS needs to be
able to both detect and eliminate pathogens as
quickly as possible. Generalized lymphocytes will
not be very fast at detecting specific pathogens,
nor very efficient at capturing them.
How does the IS learn to
recognize specific pathogens?
Through a process called affinity maturation, which is essentially
a Darwinian process of variation and selection. Affinity
maturation involves a subset of lymphocytes, B-cells.
When a B-cell is activated (its affinity threshold is exceeded), by
binding to pathogens, it does two things.
1. Firstly, it secretes a soluble form of its receptors, called
antibodies, which bind to pathogens and inactivate them, or
identify them to phagocytes and other innate system defenses,
which allows the innate system to eliminate them.
2. Secondly, the B-cell clones itself, but the copies producted by this
cloning are not perfect. Cloning is subject to very high mutation
rates, called somatic hypermutation, which can result in
daughter cells that have somewhat different receptors from the
parent.
Activated B-cells
produce antibodies
and mutated clones,
which are subject to
selection via
pathogen affinities.
The affinity loop
These new B-cells will also have the opportunity to bind to
pathogens, and if they have a high affinity for the
pathogens, they in turn will be activated and cloned. The
higher the affinity of a B-cell for pathogens present, the
more likely it is that the B-cell will clone; B-cells end up
competing for available pathogens, with the highest affinity
B-cells being the "fittest" and hence replicating the most.
Thus
the variation is provided by hypermutation,
and the selection is provided by competition for
pathogens: Clonal selection.
5. Immune Memory
A successful primary immune response results in a
proliferation of B-cells that have high affinities for
the pathogens that caused the response. Typically
these B-cells are so short-lived, that once the
pathogen is eliminated, we would expect these Bcells to die out, which means that if the pathogen
were encountered again, the IS would have to go
through the whole affinity maturation process
again. The IS avoids this by somehow retaining a
memory of the information encoded in these
adapted B-cells: adapted B-cells are "memory
cells" that are very long-lived;
Primary responses to new pathogens are slow; memory
of previously seen pathogens allows the IS to mount
much faster secondary responses
Associative memory underlies the concept of inoculation
Part II
Computational Immunology
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To use information technology to advance the study of
immunology. The main research interests are at the
overlap between immunology and computer science.
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By combining these two domains one seek to identify
potential targets for vaccine and immunotherapeutic
drug design.
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By simulating laboratory experiments, we seek to
help find answers to some of (many) open questions
about the IS.
The problem – deciphering the
human immune system
large
combinatorial space;
degeneracy
difficulty
of interactions;
performing in-vivo experiments.
Cellular Automata based models of the IS
Large complex automata:
 Model incorporates a lot of immunological details;
 Allow different investigations using the same model (it is
relatively easy to compare results – integrate hypothesis);
 More suitable as real in machina experimental tool;
 Could be a good working tool for biologists;
 There are several advantages in a CA based model of the
IS:
- it represents the entities and processes of interest in
biological terms,
- it is easy to modify the complexity of the interactions
without introducing any new qualitative difficulties in
solving the model.
The Celada-Seiden model
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Among the CA based models, the Celada-Seiden
(CS) automaton (1992) is one of the most
prominent as to the biological fidelity.
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The CS-model concentrates
on the process of clonal selection
during the humoral immune response.
The CS automaton 1/2
The CS can be defined as a extended lattice gas:
 the dynamics is probabilistic;
 entities move from site to site (diffusion process);
 the number of entities is not strictly constant;
 the CS represents a single lymph node;
 the CA is defined on a triangular 2-d lattice with
periodic boundary conditions (toroidal geometry),
Each site has just six edges nearest neighbors.
The CS automaton 2/2
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Each time step corresponds to 8 hours of “real
life”;
there is an “external environment” representing
the bone marrow and the thymus. These
components create new virgin cells during the
simulation but they are NOT part of the CA;
the entities defined on the sites are cells,
molecules and signal molecules.
Cellular entities
 (B) Lymphocyte B
 (Th) Lymphocyte T Helper
 (PLB) Lymphocyte Plasma B cell
 (APC) Macrophage or generic antigen processing
cell.
Molecular entities
 (Ag) Antigen (bacteria, parasites, and viruses)
 (Ab) Antibody
 (IC) Immuno complex or Ab-Ag binding.
Signal
 (IL2) Interleukin (implicitly modeled)
Bit String
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Each entity has r(e) recettors and s(e) states.
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Cell receptors and molecules are modeled as bit
strings of length L.

The binding between two strings occurs with a
certain probability which is function of the match
m computed as the Hamming distance of the two
bit-string.
Matching Bits
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In this figure an example of perfect matching
corresponding to zero Hamming distance.
Affinity function
The probability to interact, affinity function,
is a simple truncated exponential function
with threshold mc, (L/2< mc<L),
V(m)=(L-m)/(L-mc)
V(m)=0
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In the case mc=L
for m  mc
for m< mc
we set V(L)=1.
The parameter (0,1) determines the
sharpness of the affinity.
Interactions
External interactions
 B – Ag
 B – Th
 Ab – Ag
 Th – APC
 APC – IC
 APC – Ag
Internal interactions
 B – MHCII
 APC – MHCII
The MHC molecules
containing the inserted
antigenic peptides (MHCpeptide complexes) are then
transported to the surface of
the cell.
The main loop of the ARIMSY program
For (simTime=0; simTime<200; simTime++)
{
birth();
/* B cell proliferation */
produceAb(); /* PLB antibody production */
iB_Ag();
/* B cell + Ag interaction */
iAb_Ag();
/* Ab + Ag interaction */
death();
/* Cell death */
flow();
/* Flow of naive B cells from bone
marrow */
diffusion();
/* Diffusion within the body lattice*/
injectAg(); /* Check for scheduled injectionof Ag */
}
Immunization – Cells
population dynamics: Ag (upleft), B (up-right) and PLB
(down-left). Due to the
memory of the system, the Ag
is removed in decreasing time
from the first to the second
injection.
Immunization – Cells
population dynamics: T
(up-left), IC (up-right)
and Ab (down-left).
A Network of CA for the simulation of the IS
(G. Nicosia et al., Int. J. of Modern Physics C, Vol. 10 No. 4, 677-686, 1999)
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In each point of the CA-node one have only one cell and
a certain maximum number nmax of molecules.
Some works with the CS-model 1/2
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B. Kohler (NYU) performed a systematic study in
IMMSIM indicating that depending on the
characteristics (speed of growth, size of burst,
infectivity) of the virus, the vaccine to be successful
should sometimes “correct” the balance between
humoral and cellular responses.
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S. Kleinstein (Princeton) simulated the dynamics of
T cells and B cell hypermutation in Germinal centres.
Some work with the CS-model 2/2
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F. Castiglione (University of Cologne) studied the
physical properties of humoral immune response
(Phys. Rev. E, Vol. 61, issue 2, 2000; Phys. Rev.
Lett., Vol. 79, No. 22, 1997).

People at the University of Catania developed a
different automaton approach which shows to
reproduce the same behaviour for what concernes
the humoral response. Moreover they studied the
pattern recognition ability of the IS (G. Nicosia et
al., Theory in Bioscience, to appear 2001).
Part II, future directions
• To improve visualisation.
• To insert CD5 and CD72 recetors
to implement the apoptosis process.
• Final goal of the simulations is to carry on
realistic “in machina” experiments.
Part III
Immune System metaphor for
machine learning:
Patterns Recognition with an
Artificial Immune System
Why are computer scientists
interested in the immune system?
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It is a unique and fascinating computational system that
has evolved to solve a unique problem. We hope that a
study of the IS can suggest new solutions to computer
science problems, or at least give us new ways of
looking at these problems. Some of the properties of the
IS that might be of interest to a computer scientist are:
Uniqueness: the IS of each individual is unique and
therefore vulnerabilities differ from one system to the
next.
Distributed detection: the detectors used by the IS are
small and efficient, are highly distributed, and are not
subject to centralized control or coordination.
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Imperfect detection: by not requiring absolute
detection of every pathogen, the IS is more flexible.
Anomaly detection: the IS can detect and react to
pathogens that the body has never before encountered.
Learning and memory (adaptability): the IS can
learn the structures of pathogens, and remember those
structures, so that future responses to the pathogens can
be much faster.
These properties result in a system that is:
scalable, resilient to subversion, robust,
very flexible, and that degrades gracefully.
Immunological Computation
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From an information-processing perspective, the IS is a
remarkable parallel and distributed adaptive system.
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It uses learning, memory, and associative retrieval to
solve recognition and classification tasks.
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Also, the overall behavior of the system is an emergent
property of many local interactions.
These remarkable information-processing abilities of
the IS provide several important aspects in the field of
computation.
The Artificial Immune Systems
The Immunological Computation makes
use of immunolgical concepts in order to
creates tools and algorithms (the Artificial
Immune Systems) for solving machinelearning problems.
Other biologically inspired systems:
1.
Artificial neural networks;
2.
Evolutionary computation;
3.
DNA computation.
Applications
AIS is a new computational paradigm which is used
in different areas of science and technology ( see D.
Dasgupta, 1998, Springer).
In between the various application we remind:
- data analysis (Very Important Application);
- control autonomous mobile robot;
- intelligent control applied to aircraft control;
- commercial antivirus product (IBM antivirus);
- security (V.I.A.);
- anomaly detection (V.I.A);
- function optimization.
Metaphors employed
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B cells, Antigens;
Clonal selection;
Somatic hypermutation;
Adaptation;
Primary and secondary immune response.
The AIS algorithm
(G. Nicosia et al., ”, accepted to Natural and Artificial Intelligent Systems,
ENAIS'2001, ICSC Academic Press, March 17-21, 2001, Dubai)
Input(patterns, mc)
init(B population)
for(t=0; t<steps; t++)
{ interact()
proliferate()
if (pm != 0) {
hypermutation()
}
age()
bone-marrow()
diffuse()
}
Output(B population)
/* cells interact */
/* clone expansion*/
/* mutation process*/
/* death*/
/* new B cells*/
/* diffusion of patterns e B cells */
Recognition of one pattern
Learning multiple patterns
Lower plot: the antigen population (learning phase).
Upper plot: the population of the recognizing clones of B cells
(recall phase). All the pattern are recognized.
Recognition Capacity
Recognition rate for different initial populations and
number of different patterns presented.
Part III, conclusions
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The AIS is able to recognize multiple presented
patterns and to cover a large repertoire thanks
to the mutation process and the clonal
selection.
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The threshold parameter mc can be used to
tune the tolerance in the recognition process.
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The bottleneck seems to be the initial number
of cells represented in the system.
Part III, Future works
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More exploration of immunology metaphors:
1. T cells,
2. Macrophages (breaking up the antigens),
3. Using other matching methods.
Associative memory with an AIS.
Character recognition.
Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) and other
NP-problems.
Part IV, future directions
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Bioinformatics is the interdisciplinary science concerning
the acquisition, archiving, analysis, and interpretation of
biological information.
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In particular, it is concerned with exploiting modern
developments in computer science towards understanding
the structure and function of proteins, cells, and the
genome, and understanding the process of natural
evolution.
Computational Tools in Bioinformatics
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Hidden Markov Models;
Neural Networks;
Genetic algorithms;
Tree Algorithms;
Dynamic Programming;
Interval Graphs;
Entropy Maximization;
Monte Carlo Methods;
Simulated Annealing.
Final remark
There are several opportunities in this
area for the application of evolutionary
computation techniques; much work is
already under way, but there are lots of
opportunities still unexplored (e.g., the
AIS).