Cellular Interactions Flashcards
What is the inflammatory response for?
- First line of defence that’s part of the inate immune system
- Protects against injury
- Protects against infections
- Promotes healing
What are the 5 cardinal signs of inflammation?
- Redness
- Heat
- Swelling
(due to increase blood flow to the area) - Loss of function
- Pain
What is the 3 sections of the skin structure?
- Epidermis
- Keratinocytes - Dermis
- Fatty tissue - connective tissue
- Capillaries - Subcutaneous Layer
- Fat
- Larger blood vessel and nerves
What occurs when there’s an injury to the surface of the skin?
- Clots and exudate- neutrophils gather and haemorrhage too
- Mitosis (dividing cells)
- Fibroblasts- create tissue to heal and create new scar tissue
- New capillaries and macrophages - Complex cascade of events occur that recruit many other cell types from the circulation
What is the purpose of inflammation occurring in injury?
- Protect from invading pathogen
- Penetration
- Burn
- For both part of healing process
What is the purpose of inflammation occurring in insect bite?
- Protects against infection
2. Heals wound
What clinical problems may an inflammation response have?
- Insect bite: Hypersensitivity- out of controlled response
- Contact dermatitis: allergy
- Atopic Dermatitis (eczema)
- Urticaria (allergy/adverse reaction)- give someone a drug rash
Give examples of when the inflammation response goes wrong?
- Hypersensitivity (insect bite)
- Failure to heal
- Chronic inflammation (Rheumatoid arthritis- cells attacking themselves and lose function in cell)
How do chemical signals cause cardinal signs of inflammation?
Changing cellular functions and each mediator has slightly different effects by targeting different receptors and cells
- Many mediators are complex as most act as drug targets
- Receptors
- Enzymes
- Steroid receptors and protein expression
What mediators act as drug targets?
- Receptors
- Enzymes
- Steroid Receptors and protein expression
What are mast cells and give examples of what they release?
- Cells that contain or make numerous inflammatory mediators (reside in every tissue site of the body)
- Histamine, 5-HT (serotonin), proteases
- Lipid derived mediators (prostaglandins)
- Cytokines (peptide mediators)
How are mast cells activated ?
- Pathogens
- IgE (antibodies) (immunoglobins)
- Complement Cascade (clotting system)
- Physical damage
What do the terms Wheal and Flare mean? And what can this lead to?
- Wheal- Swelling
- Flare- Reddening
- Leads to itch or pain- release of inflammatory mediators and activation of sensory nerves
Where is histamine released? And what does an injection of it cause?
- Released by mast cells
2. Causes wheal and flare of the cells
How do anti-histmaines work?
They block the Histamine H1 receptors