Innate immune response to microbial challenge Flashcards
What is the whole early immune system in vertebrates?
Innate immune system
What are the key concepts of the innate immune system?
Prevents infection
May eliminate infection with or without interaction with acquired immune system
Early response to infection (minutes/hours)
May drive adaptive immune responses
No memory
Recognises microbial conserved structures that aren’t found in host (PAMPs)
Doesn’t react with self
Targets products needed for microbial survival
Components encoded in germ line
What are the main components of the innate immune system?
Physical barriers- skin and mucociliary escalator
Cellular barrier- immune active (secretions)
Circulating effector leukocytes- monocytes/macrophages, neutrophils and NK cells
Circulating proteins- complements, collectins and pentraxins (CRP) and antimicrobial peptides (defensins
Commensal organisms- gut microbiome, cytokines and local enzymes
What are NK cells?
Specialised T lymphocytes
What are NK cells triggered by?
IL-12 and IL-15
What do NK cells detect?
Missing self- loss of MHC class I and kill infected and malignant cells
What do NK cells secrete?
Cytokines- mainly IFN-g (top of the cytokine cascade)
What do the cytokines released by NK cells do?
They activate macrophages
They activate receptors and signal via receptor protein tyrosine kinase.
What do mannose receptors on phagocytic cells bind to?
Mannose and fucose receptors on microbial glycoproteins and lipids
What other type of receptors are found on phagocytic cells?
Scavenger receptors including CD14
How do phagocytes cause opsonisation?
Complement (especially C3), antibody and ingestion into vesicles
What effect do macrophages have on mycobacterial infection?
Macrophages can disseminate mycobacterial infection
What do Toll-like receptors do?
They give specificity to the innate immune system, they recognise and discriminate specific microbial components
They activate the proinflammatory cascase
What do TLRs interact with?
Various adapter molecules such as CD14 and MyD88
They act intracellularly and extracellularly
What are the proinflammatory cytokines?
TNF-alpha
IL-1
These are at the top of inflammatory cytokine cascade- release of these leads to release of many
What regulatory cytokines are there?
IFN-g
IL-12
These activate adaptive immunity
What down-regulatory cytokines are there?
IL-10
TGF-b
What chemoattractants are there?
Chemokines
What is cytokine secretion like including regulation?
It is transcriptionally regulated and relatively transient
What are the 4 main properties of cytokines?
Pleiotropism- when a single gene affects a number of phenotypic traits within the same organism
Synergism
Antagonism
Redundancy- some don’t do anything
What is the major source of TNF-alpha?
Mononuclear phagocytes
When is TNF alpha secreted?
Early in infection
What does TNF-alpha do?
Mediates response to LPS (Gram-negative sepsis)
Causes cachexia and septic shock
Affects muscle function- depresses the heart
Drives metabolic disturbances
Decrease blood glucose
Emerging interaction between metabolism and immunity
What are the two main TNF-alpha receptors?
p75 TNF
p55 TNF
What do the death domains on some of the TNF receptors do?
They activate death signalling pathways involving caspases leading to cell death- it can cause necrosis or apoptosis
How does NF-kB exist?
It sits in the cytoplasm as a heterodimer of p65 + p50 bound to its inhibitor (IkB
What happens to NFkB when a pathogen triggers intracellular signalling via a receptor?
The IkB is phosphorylated, ubiquitinated and degraded
What does the degradation of IkB allow?
It allows the NFkB to pass from the cytoplasm to the nucleus where it binds to specific sites and leads to gene transcription
Where are NFkB binding sites found?
On nearly all pro-inflammatory genes