Chapter 13: Failures Of The Body's Defenses Flashcards
Pathogens are under great pressure to evolve mechanism to ______, __________, ________, __________, etc. our immune system.
- evade
- overcome
- trick
- suppress
Sometime our own bodies fail us, due to __________ genetic or ____________ stresses to the immune system that give the pathogen an upper hand.
- inherited
- environmental
Evasion and subversion of the immune system by pathogens
- we have complex responses to pathogens that involve many cellular/molecular interactions between the bug and our immune system
- pathogens can target any of these stages of interaction for its own benefit
Genetic Variation within some species of pathogens prevents effective long-term immunity
- protective immunity towards Streptococcus pneumoniae is serotype-specific
- there are about 90 strains of this bug
- they are called serotypes because antibodies are used to differentiate them
Mutation and recombination allow influenza virus to escape from immunity
- evolution of new influenza variants by antigenic drift
- they escape immunological memory
Antigenic Drift
- causes relatively mild and limited disease epidemic due to point mutation in the gene (hemaglutinin) of the influenza virus
- less worse
Antigenic shift
- can cause pandemics
- virus is structurally quite different from its predecessor and can infect almost everyone
- human influenza virus recombines with another virus on a third host
Trypanosomes use _________ rearrangement to change their surface antigens
- causative agent of sleeping sickness rearranges its surface glycoprotein antigens (VSG)
- antigenic variation by African trypanosomes allows them to escape from adaptive immunity
Herpes viruses persist in human hosts by hiding from the immune response
- herpes simplex virus can become dormant in sensory neurons
- when conditions are right, they come out from the latent state from the trigeminal ganglion via the axon and infect epithelial cells of the lips = cold sore blister
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
- prevents fusion of lysosome with the phagosome
- escapes destruction by the macrophages and can hide in the macrophages
Treponema pallidum
- causative agent of syphilis
- evades specific antibody by coating itself with human proteins
Viruses are great burglars
- in their environment some stole receptors, etc. to neutralize the ligand and intracellular pathways
Bacterial super-antigens stimulate a massive but ineffective T-cell response
- staphylococcal enterotoxins and toxic shock syndrome toxins produced by staphylococcus aureus bacteria can induce a massive T cells proliferation and differentiation up to 20% and eventually apoptosis
Immune responses can contribute to disease
- some pathologies of infection is directly due to the powerful response of the immune system to the infection
- all pathology is due to the immune system when it comes to kids being infected with the Respiratory Syncytial Virus
- alveoli fuse together and kids can’t breathe properly
- increase of mucous production, increased th2 response, recruitment of damaging eosinophils to the area
Bacterial superantigens stimulate a massive but ineffective ______ T cell response
- CD4