Immune System Flashcards
What do Microbes do for our immune system?
- Protect us from diseases
- Occupy space, inhibiting bacteria occupancy
- Train bodily systems to differentiate from good and bad bacteria
How do viruses help our immune system?
Vaccines - Activation of immune system by exposure to “Dead” viruses (Smallpox, Polio)
Explain the equilibrium between Infection and Immunity.
Increased amount of pathogens will force immune system to increase host defenses and “balance out” the system.
What occurs when there is a decreased immune response in the presence of Pathogens? What circumstances could provide this decreased response.
Increased risk of infection
Caused by:
Radiation
Chemotherapy
HIV
What occurs when there is an immune response without the presence of pathogens?
Imbalance of immunity and infection and immunity cells can target host cells. (Autoimmune disease)
Differentiate between Innate and Adaptive Immunological response.
Innate - (Non-specific), generalized and expressed as a process of inflammation. Response within hours, Ø memory, and responses to many pathogens
Adaptive - Reacts to specific pathogens, and has a memory. Typical response within a few days. One cell can only recognize one pathogen.
What is the intrinsic immune system? What is it comprised of?
It is the anatomical and physiological barrier against pathogens. Made from:
Skin
GI Tract
Nasopharynx & Eyes
Explain how the GI tract provides immunity to pathogens.
Peristalsis - removal of wastes
Low pH of stomach - Kills pathogens
Bile salts
Explain how to Nasopharynx & Eyes are a protective against pathogens.
Saliva, Mucous and tears - wash away pathogens and contains Lysozymes - destroy bacterial cells.
How does lysozyme destroy Pathogenic cells?
Cuts between NAG and NAM in petidoglycan layers
Adaptive Immunity has five distinct attributes:
Explain each.
[S.I.C.U.M.] (Sick em’)
Specificity: acts only against specific pathogen of specific molecular shape
Inducibility: Adaptive immunity cells are activated in response to pathogen
Clonality: Adaptive immunity cells proliferate to form multiple generations of almost identical cells (Clones)
Unresponsiveness to Self: Does not act against cells of the host
Memory: Remembers specific pathogens and adapts faster and more effectively to subsequent exposures.
What are the two types of lymphocytes of the adaptive immune system and where do they mature?
B and T lymphocytes
B cells are created and mature in Bone Marrow and reside in the Spleen, in MALT (Mucosa associated lymphoid tissue), and lymph nodes
T Cells are made in Red bone marrow then travel to the Thymus in the chest for maturation
(T = Thymus, B = Bone)
What are antigens?
Substances that are toxic and induce a specific immune response
What are antibodies? What do they do?
Protein molecules produced by plasma cells in response to an antigen and can bind specifically to that antigen.
What does every B Cell have that allows the cell to identify a specific pathogen?
Antibodies
What is Neutralization?
When antibodies neutralize toxins by binding to their attachment molecules
What is Agglutination?
When antigens complete a complex of pathogens to be phagocytized by phagocytes
What is Precipitation?
When antigens attach to molecules and creates a complex to be phagocytized by phagocytes
What is clonal selection?
When an antigen triggers an immune response from specific immunological cell, the cell then divides and becomes multiple plasma cells which release antibodies to free float and fight the same antigen in the future.
Differentiate between the 1st and 2nd exposure and how it affects clonal selection.
During the 1st exposure to pathogen - immune response is small
During the 2nd exposure - secondary immune response is much faster and larger than the 1st. Due to immunological memory, and many antibodies acting rapidly. Initiated from memory cells
What is IgM and IgG?
IgM are memory cells that were triggered from an initial infection.
IgG are antibodies that typically remain in lymph nodes until infection of the same antigen
Who Was Jenner and what did he do?
English Physician who created first safe small-pox vaccine. Did this by exposing people to similar virus that was transmitted by cows; this virus was much less harmful but exposure provided immunization against smallpox.
What is Herd Immunity?
A type of immunity that occurs when the vaccinated population provides protection to unvaccinated people.
Done by reducing the amount of people the virus can spread to - reducing hosts. (Smallpox)
What is a live-attenuated vaccine?
Weakened pathogen that lacks the ability to infect the host, but has the ability to replicate. Typically the pathogen is adapted to another species and is no longer affective at causing disease in humans, but still acts as immunization against human-pathogenic strains.