Lecture 9: The Adaptive Immune System Flashcards
The Adaptive Immune System
Acquired
Very specific
Has a memory component
Consists of two components:
- Humoral (antibody mediated) immunity
- B cells are respon. for this - Cell mediated immunity
- T cells (*specifically cytotoxic ones) are respon. for this
• Acquired (meaning)
NOT born with - instead, develops over course of your life b/c of pathogens your encountering on daily basis
- Begins as soon as a pathogen is encountered for the very first time
- Adaptive response will not occur until a pathogen is encountered
• Very specific (meaning)
• Very targeted to a specific feature of a given bacterium, virus, toxin
- going after something about E.coli, something about HIV or SARS-COV-2 (not random or non-specific)
- • Immunity to one pathogen will not confer immunity to another
- NOT cross-reactive responses
• Has a memory component (meaning)
• Produces a more effective response when a pathogen is encountered for the second time-faster and stronger
- if you’ve seen something and mounted a response against it today it, its something you will have memory and protection against net time you encounter material
- ~long-term protection b/c it remembers any adaptive interaction that took place before
- 2nd response is much quicker & will produce higher levels of immune activation, immune response & stronger response overall
Antibodies:
Something YOU make to protect you
• Proteins produced by the immune system that bind and inactivate foreign antigen
Immunogens:
Any foreign material that has the ability to active the adaptive immune system
- NOT YOU
- get the attention of adaptive immunity
• Normally protein, polysaccharide, lipid material *=ALL ORGANIC
Epitopes:
• The actual portion of the ANTIGEN that binds to the antibody
- each spike protein will be referred to as an antigen & antibodies binding to this are doing so with specific regions referred to as epitope
• A single antigen will have more than one epitope
- each antibody will have their own specific epitope that they bind to, in order to induce protection & nutrilization
• Increases the ability of an antigen to activation the immune system –> immunogenicity
- some antigens so a much better job of activating the immune system then others
– some antigens will be less immunogenic & won’t have same opp. to activate immune system & that means some antigens are better for vaccination then others b/c they’ll be stronger in terms of how they turn on the immune system
• Each epitope requires a distinct antibody
Hapten:
• LOW MOLECULAR WEIGHT compound that is too small on its own to activate adaptive immunity
- not big enough to get the attention of the immune system
• NOT IMMUNOGENIC
- Can bind to other molecules such as protein in blood and tissues
- Becomes strongly immunogenic
- An allergy forms
- Ex) penicillin
Describe penicillin
antibiotic used to treat infection
- penicillin is a HAPTEN that specifically will bind to PROTEINS that are be present in blood & tissues for ex
- & whole thing gets attention of immune system
- & is said to be STRONGLY IMMUNOGENIC (allows opp. for immune system to react against penicillin which you don’t want)
- whole point of penicillin was to help you treat an infection (not to kill off drug & remove from insides of body)
Antibodies (Ab) are…
glycosylated protein molecules
- b/c are AA sequences that have sugar groups that are added to various locations
Antibodies (Ab) are AKA
Also called IMMUNOGLOBULINS (Ig)
Describe the structure of antibodies
Consist of 4 subunits
• TWO identical HEAVY chains- have many aa’sn
• TWO identical LIGHT chains- have less aa’s
- CHAINS are assembled creating THREE distinct regions
- 2 identical variable regions (Fab regions)
- 1 constant region (Fc region)
Explain the 2 identical variable regions (Fab regions)
formed from heavy & light chain that come together
• Provide the specificity of the antibody
- allow foreign material to initiate a response
- get bound to that foreign material specifically at that site & if you want to bind a diff kind of foreign matter, you will then need a brand new antibody in order to do it
- has to be more than 1 antibody when you have foreign material that has diff components or antigens b/c each antibody is so specific
think: same way police has to interact with bad guys (Fab region)
Explain the 1 constant region (Fc region)
b/c not an infinite # of possibilities but instead are only 5
- type of Fc region will determine which of the 5 we have
• Allows for INTERACTION (talk) with immune cells
- Fc region allows antibody to be able to send messages & to be able to communicate with other elements of the immune system
• Based on differences in the Fc region there are FIVE different types of antibody
think: in Fc region, police has opp. to interact with other members of the force, to communicate diff types of info they found
Classes of Antibody
- Immunoglobulin M (IgM)
- Immunoglobulin G (IgG)
- Immunoglobulin A (IgA)
- Immunoglobulin D (IgD)
- Immunoglobulin E (IgE)
Immunoglobulin M (IgM):
Pentameric
• Five different antibody units form IgM; each antibody can bind 2 identical antigens
• Always the first antibody to be produced in
response to an antigen; 1 st antibody that reacts to an infection which later on you can switch and produce different antibodies
• Primary antibody response
- Found on the surface of B lymphocytes
- Remains in the blood; b/c so large even with increased pore size during inflammation
- Unable to enter the tissues
- Low affinity for antigen; doesn’t bind with strong affinity
- Very good at agglutination; can bind 10 identical antigens