Immune evasion

Question 1

What is a virokine/viroceptor

Answer 1

proteins that viruses make which mimic cytokines or cell receptors (act as decoys)

Question 2

What is the purpose of a bacterial capsule

Answer 2

Act as a cloak, makes phagocytosis harder

Question 3

What is the purpose of viral latency

Answer 3

e.g. herpesviruses- can shut off replication and lie low in tissues to avoid being detected, can be reactivated at times of stress

Question 4

How do pathogens use immunopriviledged tissues

Answer 4

Infect them and then spread- e.g. testes

Question 5

What is antigenic drift

Answer 5

Viruses have RNA genome and is replicated quickly with no correction mechanism for the replication.
Lots of mistakes accumulate, this can lead to adaptive advantage for the viruses

Question 6

What is antigenic shift

Answer 6

Influenza viruses do this a lot, producing large-scale changes in their antigenicity so different viruses end up looking very different.
2 distinct viruses could infect the same cell at the same time and end up mixed together and reassorted leading to a virus-producing 2 proteins- 1 from each parent virus

Question 7

How viruses affect apoptosis

Answer 7

Some viruses inhibit apoptosis so the cell stays alive and the virus can keep replicating within the cell
Some viruses upregulate apoptosis as it allows them to burst out of the cell and be released and then spread to more