Presenters: Arrick Gonzales and Evelyn Juarez
Poster Description: T cells are important in immune responses to infection, and T cells can patrol all tissues to clear infection. To study how T cell movement in different organs impact immune responses, we used two-photon microscopy of T cell movement in lymph nodes, lung, the gut villi and female reproductive tissues (FRT) for our analysis. The data provided three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates for each T cell with a fourth coordinate for time. We constructed the speed, turning angle, and volume distributions within each tissue. We also computed the tendency for T cells to move in the same direction when they patrol the same area. Using statistical analysis, we computed the p-value for pairwise comparisons of tissues. Our analysis showed that T cells exhibit different behavior within different tissues. By sampling from distributions of empirical data, we were able to create virtual T cells which move with similar speeds and turning angles in order to better understand the amount of time necessary for T cells to patrol a tissue fully.