Abstract
“A discovery is premature if its implications cannot be connected by a series of simple logical steps to canonical, or generally accepted, knowledge” (1). If this is true, then the discovery of the idiotype-anti-idiotype network of lymphocytes (2) must be considered premature, since to this date it has not been successfully integrated, logically, into the growing body of knowledge about the immune system. Alternatively, the network hypothesis itself or the “accepted knowledge”, or both, are deficient. I shall argue in favor of the second possibility. But first I shall briefly refer to the body of knowledge and discuss whether the analytical tools in the hands of theoretical immunologists are capable of integrating or reshaping it in any substantial way.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
G.S. Stent: Sci. Am. 227, 84, (1972).
N.K. Jerne: Ann. Immunol. (Paris) 125C, 373 (1974).
W.C. Wimsatt: In Topics of the Philosophy of Biology, ed. by M. Grene and E. Mendelsohn (Reidel Publ. Co., Dordrecht and Boston, 1976).
W.E. Paul: J. Immunol. 139, 1 (1987).
F.M. Burnet: The Clonal Selection Theory of Acquired Immunity. (Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1991.
P. Marrack, I. Kappler: Science 238, 1073 (1987).
N.A. Mitchison: In Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 32, 431 (1967).
R.K. Gershon, K. Kondo: Immunol. 18, 723 (1970).
Z. Grossman: Eur. J. Immunol. 12, 747 (1982).
Z. Grossman: Immunol. Rev. 79, 119 (1984).
Z. Grossman, G. Berke: J. Theor. Biol. 83, 267 (1980).
A.A. Freitas, B. Rocha, A.A. Coutinho: Immunol. Rev. 91, 5 (1986).
M. Conn: Cell. Immunol. 61, 425 (1981).
R. Levins: Am. Sci. 54, 421 (1966).
Z. Grossman: Lec. Notes Biomath. 57, 312 (1985).
J. H. Humphrey: Ann. Rev. Immunol. 2, 1 (1984).
P.B. Medawar: Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought (Methuen, London, 1969).
J. Eisenfeld: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 504, 132 (1987).
J. Eisenfeld, C. DeLisi: In Mathematics and Computers in Biomedical Applications, ed. by J. Eisenfeld and C. De Lisi (Elsvier, New York, 1985) p. 39.
I.R. Cohen, H. Atlan: Network regulation of autoimmunity: an automaton model. Preprint.
I.G. Kevrekidis, A.P. Zecha, A.S. Perelson: In Theoretical Immunology, Part One, SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, ed. by A.S. Perelson (Addison-Wesley, 1988) p. 167.
A.R. Peacocke: An Introduction to the Physical Chemistry of Biological Organization (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983) p. 13.
R.E. Langman, M. Cohn: Immunol. Today 7, 100 (1986).
A.S. Perelson: In Theoretical Immunology, Part Two, SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, ed. by A.S. Perelson (Addison-Wesley, 1988) p.
J.D. Farmer, S.A. Kaufman, N.H. Packard, A.S. Perelson: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 504, 118 (1987).
W.M. Elsasser: Reflection on a Theory of Organisms (Orbis, Quebec, 1987).
Z. Grossman, I.R. Cohen: Eur. J. Immunol. 10, 633 (1980).
Z. Grossman, R. Asofsky, C. DeLisi: J. Theor. Biol. 84, 49 (1980).
Z. Grossman, R.B. Herberman: Immunol. Today 7, 128 (1986).
R.J. De Boer, P. Hogeweg: IMA J. Math. Applied in Medicine and Biology 4, 1 (1987).
R.J. De Boer, P. Hogeweg: J. Theor. Biol. 124, 343 (1987).
R.J. De Boer, P. Hogeweg: J. Theor. Biol. 120, 331 (1986).
Z. Grossman: In Math. Modeling in Science and Technology, ed. by A. Avula et al. (Pergamon Press, New York, 1984) p. 933.
C. Penit: J. Immunol. 137, 2115 (1986).
L.A. Segel, A.S. Perelson: In Theoretical Immunology, Part Two, SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, ed. by A.S. Perelson (Addison-Wesley, 1988) p. 321.
R.J. De Boer, P. Hogeweg: Symmetric idiotypic networks. II. Stability and unresponsiveness in high-dimensional models. Preprint.
P.H. Sugarbaker, et al.: Cancer Bull. 39, 38 (1987).
J. Quintans, et al.: J. Immunol. 136, 1974 (1986).
H. Suzuki, et al.: J. Mol. Cell Immunol. 2, 331 (1986).
H. Suzuki, J. Quintans: J. Mol. Cell Immunol. 2, 345 (1986).
C. Clayberger, R.H. DeKruyff, H. Cantor: J. Immunol. 132, 2237 (1984).
D. Baltimore: In Leukemia: Recent Advances in Biology and Treatment (A.R. Liss, 1985) p. 251.
N.A. Mitchison: Suppression of the response to murine alloantigens: Four-cell-type clusters, function-flipping and idiosyncratic responses. Progress in Allergy, to appear.
Immunol. Rev. 95 (1987).
Immunol. Rev. 100 (1987).
M.A. Lappe: Nat. Cancer Inst. Monogr. 35, 49 (1972).
E.S. Golub: Cell 27, 417 (1981).
Z. Grossman, R.B. Herberman, S. Livnat: Neural modulation of immunity: Conditioning phenomena and the adaptability of lymphoid cells. Submitted.
Z. Grossman, W.E. Paul: The significance of lymphokine promiscuity. In preparation.
N.K. Jerne: In: The Neurosciences: A Study Program, ed. by T. Melnechuk and F.O. Schmitt (Rockefeller Univ. Press, 1967) p. 200.
N.K. Jerne: Sci. Am. 229(1), 52 (1973).
M. Cohn: In Nucleic Acids in Immunology, ed. by O.S. Plescia and W. Brown (Springer, New York, 1968) p. 671.
G.W. Hoffman et al.: Physica D (1987).
J.D. Farmer, N.H. Packard, A.S. Perelson: Physica D (1987).
G. Parisi: A simple model for the immune system, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (USA). In press.
G.M. Edelman: In The Mindful Brain: Cortical Organization of the Group-Selective Theory of Higher Brain function, ed. by G.M. Edelman and V.B. Mountcastle (MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 1978) p.51.
S. Grossberg: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci (USA) 77, 2338 (1980).
McClelland, Rumelhart and the PDP Group: Parallel Distributed Processing (MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 1986).
G.M. Edelman: In Organization of the Cerebral Cortex, ed. by F.O. Shmitt et al. (MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 1981) p. 535.
Z. Grossman: Leuk. Res. 10, 937 (1986).
Z. Grossman, R.F. Levine: In Megakaryocyte Development and function, ed. by R.F. Levine et al. (A.R. Liss, 1986) p. 51.
Z. Grossman, R.B. Herberman: Cancer Res. 64, 2651 (1986).
D. Marr: Vision (Freeman, San Francisco, 1982).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1989 Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Grossman, Z. (1989). The Concept of Idiotypic Network: Deficient or Premature?. In: Atlan, H., Cohen, I.R. (eds) Theories of Immune Networks. Springer Series in Synergetics, vol 46. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-83935-1_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-83935-1_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-83937-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-83935-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive