The Immune System Flashcards
What is adaptive immunity?
Specific Immune Response: immune cells learn to recognize and respond to particular antigens.
Can be broken down into humoral immunity (driven by B cells) or cell-mediated immunity (driven by T cells).
What is innate immunity?
Nonspecific Immune Response: responses cells can carry out without learning.
Which class of leukocytes do lymphocytes belong to and what is their role?
Agranulocytes: antibody production, immune system modulation, targeted killing of infected cells.
B cells & T cells.
What is autoimmunity?
A condition where the immune system attacks self-antigens as foreign.
What are 3 lines of defense in our innate immune system?
The skin, mucous membranes, and macrophages that respond to inflammation
What does histamine do?
Indicates inflammation and causes vasodilation, allowing macrophages to move out of the blood into the tissue.
What does interferon do?
A protein released during innate immunity that prevents viral replication and dispersion.
What is humoral immunity?
A toe of adaptive immunity that involves the production of antibodies, or immunoglobins, (using B cells) and may take a week to be effective.
Describe the structure of an antibody.
Y shaped with 2 identical light chains and 2 identical heavy chains, which are linked together by disulfide linkages and noncovalent interactions. The antigen binding region is located at the tips of the Y where they bind to only one type of antigen. The remaining part is called the constant region.
Describe the primary response of B cells upon exposure to a specific antigen.
B cells proliferate into plasma cells and memory cells. The plasma cells produce antibodies, and can take anywhere from 7-10 days. The memory cells remain in the lymph nodes upon reexposure to the same antigen.
Describe the secondary response of B cells upon exposure to the same antigen.
Memory cells produce the antibodies specific to that pathogen. This is a rapid response.
Describe cell-mediated immunity
Based off the use of T cells and directly kills the invading microbe
3 types of T cells are:
Helper T cells: (T4) express CD4 surface protein and coordinate the immune response
Suppressor T cells: (T8) help tone down immune response once infection is contained
Killer/cytotoxic T cells: (T8) express CD8 surface protein and directly kill virally infected cells by secreting toxic chemicals.
What are lymphokines?
A chemical released by helper T cells that initiate the immune response
What are immunosuppressants?
Drugs that prevent the activation of the immune system, used in organ transplantation.
