Immune system 1 - MT2 - Part 2 Flashcards
What do tears contain?
A defensive enzyme
What is an example of the innate system?
Phagocytes
- macrophages
What are phagocytes?
They are cell eaters, they enter tissues from the blood and eat invaders and assorted debris
What can phagocytes do? (2)
- Recognize enemies by direct interaction with molecules produced on the surface of the target
- Recognize a potential target by interaction with a label attached to the target by the hosts immune system
- opsonization
What can act as opsonins?
Antibodies
Opsonization
Is the process by which the pathogen is marked for ingestion and eliminated by the phagocytes
What happens to antibodies once they are bound?
They change shape so the macrophages known to come and degrade the substance
How do phagocytes mainly kill the target cell?
Through the process of phagocytosis
Phagocytosis
A phagosome carries the target into the phagocyte and fuses with a lysosome
Lysosome
An organelle in the cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells containing degradative enzymes enclosed in a membrane
What can active phagocytes do?
Can signal and recruit other defences to help
How do macrophages help?
They can divide when needed so they can have more to help fight the infection
What do natural killer cells attack? (2)
- Cancerous cells
2. Cells infected with a viruses
Inflammatory response
Is a response to tissue damage, either internal or external that mainly handles bacterial infections
What are 3 possible inflammatory response side effects?
- Pain
- Redness
- Swelling
What does the body do when you have an infection?
The body’s thermostat is reset upwards after infection in order to inhibit growth of the pathogen and speeds up the action of defensive cells
What part of the body regulates body temperature?
Hypothalamus
Why do you need to have a balance in your body temperature?
If its too hot or cold you organs will begin to fail
- need homeostasis
What are 4 properties of the adaptive defensive system?
- Specificity
- each defensive molecule (antibody) interacts with a specific part of a target molecule (antigen) - Diversity
- the system as a whole interacts with many different antigens - Self/non-self recognition
- the system can distinguish between foreign (non self) and domestic (self) molecules - Memory
- the system recalls antigens it has seen in the past so it can react sooner to fight the infection
Why do we vaccines?
To introduce antibodies to our immune system so they can recognize the infection and be able to build up a defence against it sooner
Antibody
Is an individual molecule
- part of the adaptive immune system
Immunoglobulin (Ib) class
A set of similar antibodies
What properties do antibodies manifest? (2)
- Specificity
2. Diversity
What are 2 regions of an antibody molecule?
- Variable region
- different in each antibody - Constant region
- the same in each Ig class, but differ if something is bound to it
Epitope
Is the part of the antigenic molecule that binds the antibody
Where is the epitope featured?
On the surface of an antigen
Antigen
A toxin or other foreign substance that induces an immune response in the body, especially the production of antibodies
What does the binding of an epitope to an antigen initiate?
A widen defence response
What substance can be perceived as antigenic by our immune system?
Most antigens are proteins or glycoproteins
- can also have glycoproteins and polysaccharides
How are millions of different antibodies generated?
They are generated by editing the genes during the development of B cells
What do B cells produce?
Antibodies
What type of genes are randomly and independently mutated in each developing B cell?
Ig gene
T cell receptor
Are glycoproteins located at the surface of T cell
What do T cell receptors do? (2)
- They manifest specificity and diversity
2. They bind to antigens
How is the T cell receptor diversity generated?
By gene rearrangements
