Chapter 8: Adaptive Immunity Flashcards
What is the 3rd line of defense in the human body?
Adaptive (acquired) immunity, a.k.a. the immune response.
p. 224
What is the primary difference between inflammation (the 2nd line of defense) and adaptive immunity?
Inflammation is relatively rapid, nonspecific and short-lived.
Adaptive immunity is slower acting, specific, and very long-lived.
p. 224
Inflammation is the “first responder” that contains the initial injury and _____ the spread of infection, whereas adaptive immunity slowly augments the initial defenses against infection and provides _________ security against reinfection.
slows
long-term
p. 224
The immune system of the normal adult is continually challenged by spectrum of substances that it may recognize as foreign, or “________”. These substances, called foreign antigens, are often associated with pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites, although they are also found on non-infectious environmental agents such as pollens, food, and be venom, and still others are associated with clinically derived drugs, vaccines, transfusions, and transplanted tissues.
non-self
p. 225
What are the key products of the adaptive immune response?
Immunoglobulins (a.k.a. antibodies) and lymphocytes
p. 225
Generally speaking, what are antibodies/immunoglobulins?
A type of serum protein
p. 225
_________ and ______ are the primary characteristics that differentiate immune response from other protective mechanisms.
Specificity
memory
p. 225
Before birth, humans produce a large population of T lymphocytes and B lymphocytes that have the capacity to recognize almost any foreign antigen found in the environment. Each individual T or B cell, however, specifically recognizes ____ ___ particular antigen, but the sum of the population of lymphocytes specificities may represent millions of foreign antigens. This process is called the __________ __ ______ _________ and occurs in specialized (primary) lymphoid organs - the ______ for T cells and the ____ ______ for B cells.
only one
generation of clonal diversity
thymus
bone marrow
p. 225
B cells, though we assume are named for bone marrow which is where they go to mature, they were really named B cells after the “____ __ _________”, which is the source of B cells in birds (discovered first in chickens).
bursa of Fabricius
The Bursa of Fabricius (BF) was first described by Fabricius ab Aquapendente in the 1600s. BF is a sac-like structure that sits over the terminal portion of the gut in birds. To date it’s only known function is the ________ ___ _________ of B cells.
In the 1950s and 60s Bruce Glick at Ohio State University was studying the function of the BF. In an effort to determine its function, he routinely bursectomized chickens within the first 3 weeks after hatching, the period in which the bursa grows rapidly.
A graduate student at Ohio State named Timothy Chang was looking for some chickens to immunize in order to produce antibodies against Salmonella. The only chickens available at the time were Bruce Glick’s bursectomized chickens. When Chang immunized these chickens with Salmonella O antigen, many of the birds died. None of the survivors produced any antibodies. This was the seminal observation that led to the discovery that B cells were responsible for antibody production. Glick and Chang published their work in the Journal of Poultry Science in 1955 and 1956. As a result an entire field of immunology was opened up, leading to the elucidation of many of the major tenets of cellular immunology, including the roles of the thymus and bursa (bone marrow in mammals) in the development of the two major lineages of immune cells, T cells and B cells.
production and maturation
[From
- https://www.bethyl.com/content/b-is-for-bursa
- The Body, by Bill Bryson, Chapter 12: The Immune System]