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BSCI 1511 > Immune System > Flashcards

Immune System Flashcards

1
Q

Why is the internal environment of an animal favorable to a pathogen?

A

Full of nutrients, protected from outside sources, acts as a means of transportation, and is climate-controlled.

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2
Q

What are the four ways pathogens enter the body?

A
  1. The skin
  2. The digestive system
  3. The respiratory system
  4. The urogenital tract
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3
Q

What is a pathogen?

A

An organism or virus that causes disease.

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4
Q

What are the three approaches to fighting pathogens?

A
  1. Physical barriers
  2. Immunological barriers
  3. Branches of the immune system
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5
Q

What do immunological barriers accomplish?

A

They recognize the foreign invader by differentiating it from self (molecular recognition) and employ mechanisms to destroy the foreign invader.

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6
Q

What are the two branches of the immune system?

A

Innate and adaptive immunity.

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7
Q

How does the broad recognition of innate immunity work?

A

Occurring in all animals, innate immunity molecularly recognizes pathogens using a small set of receptors that bind to molecules or structures that are absent from animals but are common in a group of viruses, bacteria, or other microbes.

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8
Q

How does the speed of innate vs adaptive immunity compare?

A

Innate immunity has a rapid response while adaptive immunity is slower.

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9
Q

How does the specific recognition of adaptive immunity work?

A

This system molecularly recognizes pathogens using a vast arsenal of receptors, each of which recognizes a feature typically found only on a particular part of a particular molecule of a particular pathogen.

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10
Q

How does the specific killing of adaptive immunity work?

A

Defenses elicited are against a specific pathogen or closely related pathogens, and these specific mechanisms also activate the innate arm of the immune system.

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11
Q

What does it mean to say the adaptive immunity system has memory?

A

Adaptive immunity is enhanced by prior exposure to the infecting pathogen.

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12
Q

What is the main goal of the immune system?

A

To keep you from getting sick–not to keep you from getting infected.

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13
Q

What is the physical barrier of the innate immunity of insects?

A

The exoskeleton.

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14
Q

How does the innate immunity of insects perform recognition?

A

Pattern recognition receptors recognize macromolecules that are characteristic of a broad class of pathogens.

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15
Q

What do hemocytes of the insect immune system do?

A

They broadly respond to invaders.

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16
Q

Which signaling pathways broadly respond to pathogens in the insect immune system?

A

Toll, Imd, and Jak/Stat pathways.

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17
Q

What is the Toll pathway especially effective against?

A

Gram-positive bacteria.

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18
Q

What is the Imd pathway especially effective against?

A

Gram-negative bacteria.

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19
Q

What are the effector mechanisms of the insect innate immunity system?

A

Phagocytosis, lytic antimicrobial peptides, and others.

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20
Q

What is phagocytosis?

A

An evolutionarily conserved immune response. It is a type of endocytosis in which large particulates or small organisms are taken up by a cell.

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21
Q

What are the phagocytic cells of arthropods?

A

Hemocytes.

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22
Q

What are the phagocytic cells of mammals?

A

Mainly macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells.

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23
Q

List the six steps of phagocytosis.

A
  1. Pseudopodia surround pathogens.
  2. Pathogens are engulfed by endocytosis.
  3. Vacuole forms.
  4. Vacuole and lysosome fuse.
  5. Pathogens destroyed.
  6. Debris from pathogens released.
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24
Q

What is the barrier defense of innate immunity in vertebrate animals?

A

The skin and the mucous membranes that line the digestive, respiratory, urinary, and reproductive tracts.

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25
Q

What acts as the barrier interface for the innate immunity of vertebrate animals?

A
  1. Lysozymes in body secretions that destroy bacterial cell walls.
  2. Stomach acidity that destroys microbes
  3. Sweat gland secretions that acidify the skin and slow microbial growth
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26
Q

What are the internal defenses of the innate immunity of vertebrate animals?

A
  1. Immune cells
  2. Pattern recognition receptors, like Toll receptors
  3. Antimicrobial molecules
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27
Q

What are neutrophils?

A

Phagocytic cells that circulate with the blood and are attracted by infected tissues.

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28
Q

What are monocytes?

A

Phagocytic cells in the blood

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29
Q

What are macrophages?

A

Phagocytic cells in the tissues.

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30
Q

What are dendritic cells?

A

Phagocytic cells in tissues that contact the environment, like the skin; they stimulate adaptive immunity.

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31
Q

What are eosinophils?

A

Cells in mucosal surfaces that secrete enzymes that damage multicellular parasites.

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32
Q

What are basophils and Mast cells?

A

Cells that release inflammatory histamine.

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33
Q

What are natural killer cells?

A

Cells that circulate throughout the body and detect and kill infected cells; they exist at the interface between innate and adaptive immunity. They are from the lymphoid stem cell lineage.

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34
Q

What is the difference between monocytes and macrophages?

A

Monocytes exist in the blood, and once they exit the blood into the tissues, they differentiate into macrophages. Monocytes can also differentiate into dendritic cells.

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35
Q

What is lymph?

A

Fluid derived from interstitial fluid, which flows toward large veins at the base of the neck.

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36
Q

What are lymph nodes?

A

Organs located along lymph vessels; they filter lymph and are filled with immune cells. They can be a location of phagocytosis of pathogens performed by some macrophages.

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37
Q

What happens after dendritic cells encounter pathogens?

A

They migrate to the lymph nodes and activate adaptive immune responses led by T cells and B cells.

38
Q

What are interferons?

A

A family of proteins secreted by virus-infected cells to induce nearby cells to produce factors that inhibit viral replication.

39
Q

What is the function of interferons secreted by white blood cells?

A

They enhance phagocytosis by macrophages.

40
Q

What is the complement system?

A

About 30 plasma proteins that are activated by microbes, resulting in a cascade.

41
Q

What are the four effects of the complement system cascade?

A
  1. Pathogen lysis
  2. Inflammation
  3. Pathogen opsonization
  4. Enhanced adaptive defenses
42
Q

What are antimicrobial peptides?

A

Small proteins that lyse pathogens.

43
Q

What is the importance of C3 in the complement cascade?

A

This is the point where different parts of the system coalesce.

44
Q

What happens when an infection activates the complement cascade?

A

It cleaves C3 into two parts: C3b and C3a.

45
Q

What does C3b do?

A

C3b binds to a microbe, resulting in opsonization.

46
Q

What is opsonization?

A

The enhancement of phagocytosis by coating with C3b. (A marking for phagocytosis)

47
Q

In conjunction, what do C3a and C5a do?

A

They cause mast cells to release histamine, resulting in inflammation, causing increased blood flow to that area of the body. C5a also attracts phagocytes.

48
Q

What does the membrane attack complex (MAC) do?

A

It has components that insert themselves in the membrane to create a hole that “blows up” the pathogen. A way of doing lysis.

49
Q

When talking about inflammation, what happens when injury occurs?

A

Mast cells in the connective tissue release histamine, dilating the capillaries and making them more permeable: swelling.

50
Q

When talking about inflammation, what happens after swelling?

A

Macrophages and neutrophils migrate and release cytokines that increase blood flow to the area (increasing redness and temperature); activated complement promotes increased histamine release, attracting more phagocytes.

51
Q

What is the result of increased blood flow to an area of injury?

A

Increased blood flow brings additional white blood cells and antimicrobial peptides, and pus accumulates.

52
Q

What do mast cells do?

A

They release histamine, an inflammatory cytokine.

53
Q

What causes systemic inflammation?

A

A body-wide increase in white blood cells from the bone marrow and inflammatory factors.

54
Q

What causes localized inflammation?

A

Minor injury or infection.

55
Q

What causes fever?

A

Macrophages release factors that reset the body’s thermostat to a higher temperature.

56
Q

What is septic shock?

A

A life-threatening inflammatory response.

57
Q

Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are examples of what condition?

A

Chronic inflammation.

58
Q

What is pus?

A

Whitish fluid filled with white blood cells, dead pathogens, and debris.

59
Q

How does adaptive immunity exhibit diversity and specificity?

A

There is an immense diversity of lymphocytes and their receptors, enabling the immune system to
specifically detect pathogens it has never encountered.

60
Q

How does adaptive immunity exhibit self-tolerance?

A
  1. “Self” components are not attacked.
  2. Autoreactive cells are killed by apoptosis: self-tolerance.
61
Q

What are the effects of clonal selection and expansion in adaptive immunity?

A
  1. An increase in cell proliferation, which increases the number of B and T cells specific for a specific antigen.
  2. Some become effector cells whereas others become memory cells.
62
Q

What is immunological memory?

A

A stronger and more rapid response to an antigen that has been encountered previously.

63
Q

Where do B cells develop?

A

The bone marrow.

64
Q

Where do T cells develop?

A

They begin development in the bone marrow and complete development in the thymus.

65
Q

What is an antigen?

A

A substance that elicits a B cell or T cell response.

66
Q

What is an epitope?

A

One part of an antigen of a specific pathogen that each antigen receptor binds to.

67
Q

What type of sequences do antigen receptors bind?

A

Really short amino acid sequences of about 12.

68
Q

Describe the structural composition of B cell receptors.

A
  1. Two heavy chains
  2. Two light chains
  3. Disulfide bonds (bridges) link the chains
  4. Membrane spanning region
69
Q

Describe the functional composition of B cell receptors.

A
  1. Constant (C) regions are similar between all B cell receptors.
  2. Variable (V) regions at the tips of the Y-shaped receptors; these are specific, and bind specific antigens.
70
Q

How do the receptors within an individual B cell or T cell compare to each other?

A

They are identical and can only bind one specific epitope.

71
Q

How many antigen binding sites does each B cell receptor have?

A

Two, and they bind the same antigen.

72
Q

What happens when B cell receptors on a B cell bind an antigen?

A

It activates the B cell, transforming it into a plasma cell and secreting antibodies.

73
Q

What do the antibodies secreted by B cells do?

A

They bind the same antigen in the blood or lymph.

74
Q

What dictates the specificity of the B cell receptor?

A

The amino acid sequences of the variable regions.

75
Q

What dictates the diversity of B cells?

A

Different B cells recognize different epitopes because of differences in the variable regions.

76
Q

Describe the structural composition of T cell receptors.

A
  1. a chain
  2. B chain
  3. Disulfide bond that links the chains
77
Q

Describe the functional composition of T cell receptors.

A
  1. Constant (C) region is similar between all T cells receptors, and is on the membrane.
  2. Variable (V) region is the site for antigen binding; these are specific.
78
Q

How do B cell receptors differ from T cell receptors?

A

B cell receptors can recognize an antigen that is loose, but T cell receptors can only recognize an antigen that is presented to it.

79
Q

How does antigen presentation work for T cell receptors?

A

T cell receptors bind antigens presented on major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins on the surface of other cells. The antigen presenting cells cleave antigens in the cytoplasm, load them on MHC, and display them on their surface

80
Q

Can a T cell receptor recognize an antigen not loaded into an MHC receptor?

A

No.

81
Q

How do the T cell receptors within a single T cell compare to each other?

A

They are all the same.

82
Q

How many different B cell receptors does a person have?

A

1 million

83
Q

How many different T cell receptors does a person have?

A

10 million

84
Q

What are the two ways B cell and T cell diversity is generated?

A
  1. VJ recombination: light (B cell) and a (T cell) chains
  2. V(D)J recombination: heavy (B cell) and B (T cell) chains
85
Q

What is the genetic sequence for an antibody composed of?

A

One V region, one J region, and one C region.

86
Q

What does the C region of the genetic sequence for an antibody give rise to?

A

The constant region of the receptor.

87
Q

What does the VJ region of the genetic sequence for an antibody give rise to?

A

The variable region of the receptor.

88
Q

What are effector cells?

A

Activated lymphocytes multiply to produce immunologically active clones – effector cells.

89
Q

What are the effector cells of B cells?

A

Plasma cells

90
Q

What are the effector cells of T cells?

A

Helper T cells (CD4+) and cytotoxic T cells (CD8+)

BSCI 1511 (32 decks)

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