Inflammation Basics

Question 1

What is inflammation?

Answer 1

A complex reaction of the body to damage to its cell and vascularised tissue.

Question 2

What sort of damage causes inflammation?

Answer 2

• physical/chemical
• infectious agents
• antigen challenges

Question 3

What are the signs of inflammation?

Answer 3

• heat (blood flow due to vasodilation and fever)
• redness (small blood vessel dilation)
• swelling (fluid in ecm)
• pain
• loss of function (movement inhibited by pain and swelling)

Question 4

What are the aims of inflammation?

Answer 4

• to expel foreign body/infection if present
• structural and functional repair
• protective response
• isolates damaged area
• mobilises effector cells and molecules to site and later:-promotes healing and tissue repair
• inflammation protects body

Question 5

What are the stages of acute inflammation?

Answer 5

• Initiation
• Progression/amplification
• Termination

Question 6

How do neutrophils act in inflammation?

Answer 6

• Moves to site of inflammation by migration
• Neutrophils are actively phagocytic, so will engulf microbes, they then use the granules inside it to kill after engulfing.

Question 7

How do macrophages act in inflammation?

Answer 7

Ingests pathogens directly.
It has a no. of receptors in its surface to recognise components of the pathogen or components of the immune system (eg.complements)

Question 8

What receptors do mammals have for inflammation and what do they do?

Answer 8

• Mammals have ‘toll like receptors’ which recognise conserved patterns on pathogens.
• They recognise PAMP (pathogen associated molecular patterns)

Question 9

What do cytokines do in inflammation?

Answer 9

Inflammatory cytokines play a role in initiating the inflammatory response and to regulate the host defence against pathogens mediating the innate immune response.