Figure 1.

Model of immune response and age-structured population kinetics in a blood-stage malaria infection. (a) A schematic of the model. Arrows with open heads (I–IV) show the four possible cases of interaction between phase intervals of intracellular or free parasites, which can either induce or be a target of an innate response. (b) Dashed line represents the cell burst rate vs. the phase (Mathematical Formalism, Eq. 5). The solid line represents the phase profile (Eq. 8) determining, for the target interval, the relative death rate for different phases (Eq. 9), and for the inducing interval, the relative contribution of different phases into the innate response (Eq. 7). The values of D and the interval boundaries chosen for this example are shown on the figure.