Immunity Flashcards
What is a pathogen?
A disease causing microrganism
What does a cell-mediated response involve?
T lymphocytes
What does a humoral repsonse involve?
B lymphocytes
What is an innate response?
First line of defense, attacks generic classes of pathogens
What is an adaptive immune response?
A specific defence system that eliminates almost any pathogen or abnormal cell in the body through immonulogical memory
What is an infection?
Interaction between the pathogen and the bodys various defence mechanisms
What is immunity?
The ability to ward off disease
What do all immune cells come from?
Hematopoietic stem cells
What do hematopoietic stem cells differentiate into?
Lyphoid progenitor or myeloid progenitor
What is the lymphoid lineage?
Lymphocytes
—>T-cells, B-cells and natural killer cells
What is the myeloid lineage?
Ganulocytes,monocytes
—>macrophages and neutrophils
What does the 1st line of defence include/do?
Physical and chemical barriers
What does the 2nd line of defence do/include?
Non-specific inflammatory response & phagocytosis
What is the 1st immune response?
B+T cells
What is the 2nd immune response?
Memory cells
Where are all immune cells derived from?
Bone marrow
What is the specific immune response?
Defense response against a specific foreign or abnormal cell
What is a non-specific immune response?
Initital, immidiate immune reponse against forein antigens vis non-specific antibodies and immune cells
Ie physical barriers and phagocytosis
What are some examples of physical barriers?
- skin
- mucous membranes
- sebaceous + sweat glands
- tears, saliva + secretions
How does the skin act as a barrier?
It contains keratinocytes that act as an impentrable barrier
What do mucous membranes do?
It lines body cavities like the digestive, respiratory and genitourinary tracts.
The epithilial layer has goblet cells which secrete mucous and ciliated cells.
The cilia waft the mucous along sweeping any microorganisms into the stomach where the acid denatures any enzymes that the pathogen may have
What does the sebaceous gland do?
It gives the skin an acidic pH (3-5) which prevents most pathogens from reproducing
What does the stomach acid do?
It has a highly acidic enviroment which breaks down any microbes found in food or drinks
What do tears, saliva and mucous do?
They continually wash away microbes from the surface.
Lysozyme is found in tears which is an antimicrobial and will break down bacteria cell walls
What is the most abundant type of immune cell?
Neutrophil
What is the function of neutrophils?
Phagocytise bacteria
Give pus a white colour
What do dendritic cells do?
They capture antigens and deliver them to the lymph nodes where they are presented to T-cells which mulitply and attack the pathogen
What helps the body to identify self and non-self cells?
Antigens
What are the two types of WBC?
Phagocytes and lymphocytes
Where do B-cells mature?
Bone marrow
Where do T-cells mature?
Thymus gland
What are antigens?
Proteins(glycoproteins or glycolipid) that are on the cell surface of pathogens that stimulate an immune repsonse
What are examples of non-specific immune repsonses?
- inflammation
- lysozyme action
- interferon
- phagocytosis
What happens if an antigen on a pathogen changes?
Lymphocytes and memory cells can’t bind so the host cell becomes infected
What do macrophages develop to become?
Antigen presenting cells
What causes inflammation to occur?
Histamine and other chemicals released by damaged tissues
What does inflammation cause?
Vasodilation of blood vessels
Leaky blood vessels
Increases blood flow to the infected site
More phagocytes are delivered
What does interferon do?
Stops viruses spreading to uninfected cells by preventing protein synthesis in viruses
What do phagocytes do?
Ingest and destroy pathogens
What are the types of phagocytic cells?
Macrophages and neutrophils
What are neutrophils?
- Made in the bone marrow with a lobed nucleus
- Travel in the blood + tissues
- Patrol the body tissues
- Released in large numbers but are short lived
- Engulf and digest pathogens into the phagocytic vacuole
What are macrophages?
-Large long lived WBCs which move into organs and travel in the blood as monocytes
-Don’t destroy the pathogen completely by display it on the surface
(APC)
What is endocytosis?
The process by which cells take in substances from outside of the cell by engulfing them in a vesicle.
What are the stages of phagocytosis?
- The phagocyte is attracted to the pathogen by chemical products on the pathogen. It then moves along the conc. gradient via chemotaxis
- The chemical recptors on the surface of the phagocyte attach to the pathogen
- The phagocyte engulfs the pathogen and encloses it into a phagosome vesicle
- Lysosomes within the phagocyte migroate towards the phagosome and fuse to form a phagolysosome
- The lysosomes release lysozyme which release lytic enzymes into the phagosome to hydolyse the pathogen
- The pathogen is digested and the products are absorbed by the phogocyte into the cytoplasm
What is chemotaxis?
The movement of an organism in reponse to a chemical stimulus
What is the role of antigen presenting cells?
To stimulate other cells involved in the specific immune response system
How is the specific immune response activated?
- Antigen presenting cells interact with T-helper cells that have a complementary receptor
- Macrophages release interlukin 1 which stimulates T-helper cells to release interlukin 2
- Interlukin 2 causes the bone marrow to release wither T or B cells
- If T cells are released it will need the exact receptor
If B cells are released it will need the exact plasma for antibodies - Increased number of cells needed
What is interlukin 1&2?
Cytokines that act as a chemical messenger
Why are B memory cells better than T memory cells?
The antibodies dont destroy pur cell whereas killer T cells attack our cells and immune system
What do cytokines stimulate?
- B cells maturing into plasma cells that secrete antibodies
- Formation of B memory cells
- Activation of cytotoxic T cells which destroy tumour cells and virus infected cells
- Actibation of phagocytes