Adaptive immunity Flashcards
Describe the overview of the adaptive response roughly
- infection
- transport of antigen to lymphoid organs
- recognition by native T and B cells
- clonal expansion and differentiation to effector cells
- removal of infectious agent
Why is the adaptive response advantageous?
- generation time for bacteria can only take 20 mins and our generation time is 20 years
- rapid evolution of pathogens means that new receptors will be required continuously
- to compete, new receptors are continuously generated as lymphocytes develop in the bone marrow and thymus
What is an antigen?
any molecule that is specifically recognised by either T cell receptors (TCR) or antibodies
What is an epitope?
the site on an antigen that directly binds to an antibody or TCR
what is a T cell antigen?
peptide derived from an antigenic protein
What is a B cell antigen?
Proteins, carbohydrates
What is an antibody made up of and where does the antigen bind?
- variable region (antigen binding site)
- constant region
How is the structure of the variable region decided?
- in the germ-line DNA there are small segments of DNA in groups V,J and D
- bone marrow cell will randomly select one V, D and J segment which will form the gene that determines the variable region
- this is how diversity is created, by random gene recombination
What happens to newly produced B and T cells?
they are constantly recirculated through lymph nodes, lymphatic vessels and blood which improves the likelihood of encounter of a rare antigen specific cells with the antigen
What type of antibodies are produced at the start of an immune response and why?
- IgM antibodies because they are pentameric so have 10 binding sites
- low affinity
What types of antibodies due you produce later on in the immune response?
- IgA (secreted to mucous membranes)
- IgD (membrane receptor)
- IgE (Localised on Mast cells)
- IgG (highest concentration in serum)
- smaller molecules (find it easier to move into tissue)
- more specific
- all have different roles
In terms of antibodies, what happens when a B cell differentiates into a plasma cell?
-lots of antibodies are released over a long period of time
What are the functions of antibodies?
- neutralisation (prevent bacterial adherence)
- opsonisation (promotes phagocytosis)
- complement activation (antibody activates complement which enhances opsonisation and lyses some bacteria)
Where do T cells differentiate?
in the thymus gland
How are naive T cells produced?
- T cell precursor leaves bone marrow and does into the thymus gland
- in the thymus gland the cells proliferate and undergo TCR gene rearrangement
- selection occurs (removal of self-reactive cells)