The Lymphatic System Flashcards
What is the role of the lymphatic system?
Each day it collects 3 litres of interstitial fluid. It returns this 3 litres back to the blood at subclavian duct.
Also has an immune function
What are some lymphatic tissue types?
Diffuse, mucosal associated lymphatic tissue (MALT) which includes gut associated lymphatic tissue (GALT).
Bronchus associated lymphatic tissue (BALT)
What are some lymphatic nodules?
Peyer’s patches, verniform appendix, tonsils
What are the lymphatic organs?
Lymph nodes, spleen and thymus
What do lymph nodes do?
Serve as filters as lymph percolates on its way to the vascular system
What are follicular dendritic cells?
They are located in the germinal centres. Antigen-antibody complexes adhere to their dendritic processes. Follicular dendritic cells cause proliferation of B cells, in particular memory B cells
What role do professional antigen presenting cells play in the lymph nodes?
Some cells, however, are specially equipped
to acquire and present antigen, and prime naive T cells. B cells
and macrophages play a major role in the innate response, also acting as professional antigen-presenting cells (APC). These professional APCs are equipped with special immunostimulatory
receptors that allow for enhanced activation of T cells
Unlike B cells, T cells fail to recognize antigens in the absence of antigen presentation.
What is the function of the spleen?
The spleen filters blood in the same way as lymph nodes. It also has haemopoietic function in removal and destruction of old and damaged or abnormal erythrocytes and platelets. It also retrieves iron from erythrocyte haemoglobin.
What does the thymus do?
It is fully formed and
functional at birth, it involutes after puberty and by the late teens is mostly fat. Its role is the maturation of bone marrow derived stem cells into
immunocompetent T cells. This is called thymic cell education
