Inflammation Flashcards
What is inflammation?
State where the body is trying to home the immune response to a certain area
What are the functions of receptors?
Provide information to tell the cells where they are and what is around them
Allows cells to sense the environment
Transmit signals from the cell surface to the nucleus to change gene expression and function
What are cytokines?
Soluble messengers between cells
What are the different families of cytokines?
Interleukins
Interferons
Tumour Necrosis Factor
Colony-stimulating factors
Chemokines
Features of cytokines
Work through synergistic or antagonistic ways
Can de redundant
Can be pleiotropic
Which cells produce cytokines?
Activated immune cells
Epithelial cells
Stromal cells
What types of cytokines are released in the induction phase of inflammation?
Pro-inflammatory cytokines
Interferons
Examples of pro-inflammatory cytokines
TNF-a
IL-6
IL-1b
Examples of interferons
IFNa
IFNb
What are the effects of pro-inflammatory cytokines?
Local effects
Long range effects through travelling in the blood including liver, acute phase protein release and fever induction
What induces the release of interferons?
Viral infection
What are the effects of interferons?
Prevent viral replication
Activate dendritic cellls, macrophages and NK cells
Induce chemokines
What is released during the resolution phase?
Anti-inflammatory cytokines
Examples of anti-inflammatory cytokines
TGFb
IL-10
What is the main role of chemokines?
Attract other cells
Features of chemokines
Lots of redundancy in chemokine function
Several chemokines display similar activity and show shared receptor usage
Relevance behind naming system for chemokines
In the beginning, chemokines had more functionally descriptive names like Monocyte Chemotactic Protein-1
Now they have complex names denoted by L for ligand and a number linked to the receptor number
When are chemokines released?
During inflammation
Which molecules work in close association with chemokines?
Cell adhesion molecules
Work to get immune cells from the blood into the tissue
What dictates the type of leukocytes recruited into tissues?
Cellular distribution of receptors and cellular adhesion molecules
What is inflammation?
Process that rapidly recruits cells of the immune system to the sites of injury or infection
What are the signs of inflammation?
Swelling
Elevated temperature
Pain