Master's Quiz Questions Flashcards
If you know that the half-life of IgG is about 20 days, and you read the last paragraph of the discussion about the truck driver in southern China with influenza, you would predict that he survived after treatment with convalescent plasma because:
A. of a response to passive immunotherapy
B. he developed active immunity even though passive immunotherapy didn’t work
C. He was lucky
D. He developed both passive and active immunity
E. he delivered poultry for a germ free duck farm
D. He developed passive immunity and that is clear from the rapid (36’) clearance of virus from the lung but he also developed active immunity and that is clear because he developed increasing amounts of neutralizing antibodies to the virus and maintained them long after 21 days
The major advantage of the ELISA test for lyme disease is specificity: T/F
FALSE. ELISA is highly sensitive for the detection of Lyme (Borrelia) antigens but has very low specificity.
ELISA assays are generally used as screening tools for the POSSIBILITY that a patient might have made antibody to a pathogen. A positive ELISA must always be followed by a more specific serologic test for the putative pathogen, or you will be treating a lot of patients for something they don’t have!
ELISA: Sensitive but not specific
An appropriate control that should be used in the direct Coomb’s test is
A. IgG coated human RBC B. IgG coated platelets C. IgA coated human RBC D. IgG coated sheep RBC E. IgD coated new world monkey RBC
A.
This would be a positive control and would confirm that the anti-IgG antibody used in the test can actually agglutinate an IgG coated red blood cell.
Several biotech companies spent millions of dollars/euros to develop a therapy that would benefit many patients with inflammatory diseases. This type of anti-inflammatory therapy was tried in patients with the Irish pedigree and unexplainable, debilitating fevers. Unfortunately it didn’t work but the therapy has worked in thousands of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. This therapy could never have been pursued without the prior treatment of:
A. Facebook B. Hybridoma propagation C. Gastric freezing D. Confocal microscopy E. Game strategy
B. The ability to construct hybridomas that make monoclonal antibody to almost anything the investigator wants was/is one of the great milestones of immunology.
Smoking cigarettes is bad for people. Tobacco smoke affects the function of
A. Cilia B. Neutrophils migrated to the alveoli C. Mucus D. Alveolar macrophages E. Successful dating
B. Neutrophils recruited from the blood during an inflammatory response have impaired chemotaxis
Females with X-linked agammaglobinemia:
A. Are commonly found in pediatric clinics
B. Are an impossibility
C. Have lower infection rates than males with X-linked agammaglobinemia
D. Are very unlucky
E. Have babies with normal antibodies at birth
D. This would seem to be the case because either the patient would have a very rare dominant mutation on an X that is associated with B cell failure or parents who both have a recessive agammaglobinemia type gene
Note: C isn’t right. Either sex with agammaglobinemia cannot make antibodies because they have no B-cells, so there is not a difference in infection susceptibility
The surface of a single, normal B cell studied in a flow cytometer will have:
A. 1 kappa and 1 lambda chain B. Either 2 kappa chains or 2 lambda chains C. a normal BCR but abnormal TCR D. MHC1 only E. MHC2 only
B.
A normal B cell has 2 light chains on its surface of either isotope.
What’s merton’s law
When an unintended consequence occurs
Apply merton’s law to a national obstetrical dilemma. There is growing evidence that children delivered by C-section may be more susceptibel to some autoimmune diseases and some allergies. Many C-sections are scheduled at the request of the mother to befor scheduling convenience. How does Merton apply?
A. Many operating rooms have high pollen counts
B. the data about allergies and other diseases can’t be true - a delivery is a delivery
C. It doesn’t apply
D. A child delivered vaginally is exposed to a different population of maternal bacteria that one delivered by section
E. The children delivered by section had obsessive mothers who didn’t want the child exposed to “bad” bacteria
D. Recently its clear that children exposed to vaginal bacteria establish different gut populations than c-section babies. Exposure to the vaginal bacteria promote the establishment of a gut micro-biome that has a suppressive influence on the development of autoimmune and allergies. thus merton rules. a purposeful action has an unintended consequence and its not a good one.
Pig transplant with no alpha 1-4 galactosyltransferase on its cell surface and also has a human complement decay activator on its surface. The most pressing concerns about these transplants are
A. infection of the patient with an undetectable pig virus
B. blocking complement activation at the time of transplant
C. Preventing “conventional” T cell rejection
D. All of above
E. A and C
E
Females have higher rejection rates than males when thoracic organ transplants. Prior exposure to MHC antigens might be the reasons. MHC exposure could occur via all of the following except:
A. Prior pregnancy B. Blood transfusion C. Spermatozoa D. Viral infection E. IV Drug use
B. There are no MHC’s on RBC’s
The first enterovirus group that was definitively linked to Diabetes Type 1 is named after:
A. A small town in upper NY B. a figure skating event C. a football team D. a baseball team E. A soccer team
A.
A fecal specimen from the town Coxsackie provided the first isolates of an enterovirus that was subsequently named after the town. Several Coxsackie viruses can infect the pancreas and wipe out Beta cells.
The could who couldn’t keep up in the pick-up basketball game had a muscle biopsy that had no inflammatory cells in it and yet he was so weak from an autoimmune disease that he required ventilation assistance. How could that happen?
A. his antagonistic auto-antibody bound to sarcomeres only
B. He had agonistic auto-antibody that promoted degradation of acetylcholine receptors
C. He had an agonistic antibody that promoted Ca uptake by muscle
D. There was an agonistic auto-antibody specific for the acetyl choline receptor
E. No cell mediated immunity is involved so T cell would not be present in the biopsy of an involved muscle. The weakness is mediated by antibody driven destruction and degradation of AChR
B
The auto-antibody to AChR binds to the receptor which then incites uptake and degradation of it. This leads to decreased density of the receptor at the NMJ and decreased ability of the muscle to contract.
What placental animal native to S. America also in TX carries leprosy?
Armadillo! Note this thing doesn’t develop rampant granulomatous disease even though it carries it.
The immune cells from an armadillo might give us insight into pathogenesis of leprosy and TB too. Why?
The peaceful co-existence may result from:
- Leprosy processing and presentation on MHCII is less stimulatory to T-cell
- Armadillo TLR doesn’t get that excited
- DC doesn’t get that excited at seeing the leprosy
…or other stuff
