Inflammation & immunity Flashcards
What happens during the vascular phase of inflammation?
Vasodilation, increased vascular permeability, increased blood flow to the area to allow plasma proteins to travel to the site.
What are the 5 cardinal signs of inflammation.
Redness, heat, swelling, pain, loss of function
What are the four phases of acute inflammation?
Initiation, vascular, cellular, resolution
Name some cells that are sources of inflammatory mediators?
Leukocytes (basophils, eosinophils, neutrophils, monocytes, lymphocytes), mast cells, platelets and plasma
What is opsonisation?
Tagging of pathogens by complement and immunoglobulins that mark them for destruction
What is the function of neutrophils?
Phagocytosis of pathogens
Where are preformed mediators kept?
Granules
Histamine has what action on blood vessels?
Vasodilation and increased permeability
Serotonin has what affect on the blood vessels?
Vasoconstriction
Prostaglandins have what action?
Pain, fever and vasodilation
What clinical features might present with a cytokine storm?
Confusion, shortness of breath, lethargy. Similar to septic reaction.
What negative outcomes can occur if acute inflammation is not resolved?
Abscess formation, scar formation or chronic inflammation
What happens when the immune system overreacts?
Autoimmune disorders and allergic reactions
A myeloid progenitor becomes what types of cells?
Granulocytes and monocytes
A lymphoid stem cell become what types of cells?
B cells and T cells
Name the granulocytes
Neutrophil, basophil, eosinophils, mast cell and monocyte
What is the primary lymphatic tissue and what is its function?
Bone marrow for hematopoiesis and thymus for t-cell maturation
Name some examples of secondary lymphatic tissue
Spleen, lymph nodes, adenoids, tonsils, Peyer’s patch etc
What cells have the specialist function of presenting antigens to the B and T cells to trigger the adaptive immune response?
Dendritic cells
What cells are involved in cell mediated immunity?
Th (helper T) and Tc (cytotoxic T) cells
The maturation of B Cells to produce antibodies is termed…
Humoral immunity
What triggers the innate immune response?
Recognition of PAMPs (pathogen associated molecular patterns) by PRRs (pattern recognition receptors)
Name some PAMPs (pathogen associated molecular patterns) for bacteria
Lipopolysaccharides, peptidoglycans, glycolipids and lipoproteins
Name some PAMPs for viruses
Envelope proteins and ssRNA
Name some PRRs
Dendritic cells, neutrophils, macrophages
What are the functions of complement proteins?
Bind to microbes to opsonise them for phagocytosis, bind to receptors on granulocytes to encourage degranulation, stimulate chemotaxis of immune cells, form membrane attack complexes that result in cell lysis.
What are the three pathways of the complement cascade?
Classical (antibody), lectin and alternative (pathogen).
Effector B cells liberate antibodies, what are the five types?
IgG, IgA, IgD, IgM, IgE
What type of bonding is seen between the heavy and light chains of an antibody?
Disulphide bonding
What shape is an antibody?
Y
What section of the antibody binds to antigens?
Variable heavy and light regions
What part of an antigen does an antibody bind to?
The epitope
The Fc (crystallised) region of an antibody has what function?
Binds to the Fc receptor on phagocytic cells, bringing with it the pathogen so that it can be phagocytosed.
Which antibody type is the most abundant in serum?
IgG
Which antibody is most associated with allergies?
IgE
Which antibody is produced first after recognition and is an activator of the complement cascade?
IgM
Which antibody is present in secretions, making it important in the transfer of antibodies through breast milk?
IgA
What cells are important in the memory of a pathogen?
Memory B cells
What process leads to a large repertoire of antibody specificities from only a limited number of gene fragments?
Somatic recombination
What are CD4+ and CD8+ T cells respectively?
T helper cells and T cytotoxic cells
What chemical promotes the proliferation of T and B cells?
Cytokines
HLA stands for?
Human leukocyte antigen
The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) is a protein with a fragment of the pathogen that is presented the outside of antigen presenting cells to activate T cells. There are two classes of protein. Which class interacts with which T cell type?
Class I interacts with CD8 (Tc) and class II interacts with CD4 (Th)
Major histocompatibility complexes (MHC) are found in all cells of the body, they are similar to HLA, why are they important?
So that any infected cell in the body can present a part of the infective pathogen to the T cells, labelling the infected cell for destruction.
