Tolerance & Autoimmunity Flashcards
Tolerance
The avoiding of recognition and damage of self-tissues
Response to viral infection
Burst of interferons -> NK cell activation whilst adaptive immunit unfolds
How is tolerance come about?
Acquired not hard-wired
Self vs non-self?
No, really dangerous vs non
Adjuvant
Mixture that enhances body’s response to antigen
How do adjuvants work?
- Convert soluble protein into particulate material for ingestion by APCs
- May contain bacterial products that stimulate macrophages or dendritic cells through PRRs
Two types of tolerance and difference?
Central - occurs during lymphocyte dev
Peripheral - occurs after left primary organs
T cell tolerance (Central)
T cells must be able to recognise MHC proteins with non-self
peptides
Clonal selection: positive selection if some affinity for self MHC
Negative selection if too high affinity for self-peptides + MHC
Central tolerance B cells
B cells that react to peptides on self cells are eliminated
Experimental evidence?
x
Anergy
Absence of immune response to particular antigen
Why is peripheral tolerance needed?
- Many self-peptides not expressed in thymus or bone marrow
- Does not eliminate T cells with weak response to self
- Some not present until matures
Outline the 4 mechanisms for peripheral
self-tolerance
- Ignorance - potentially self-reactive T cells not activated because the antigens are in
immunologically priviledged sites (hidden) - Split tolerance - Many pathways in immune system are interdependent
e.g. if T cell tolerance has been establish then an autoreactive B cell can still be present
as it needs the T cell for co activation - Anergy - non-responsiveness state -T cells become anergic in absence of co-stimulation
- Suppression - T cells can be prevented from reacting by other T cells
Tregs. These have intermediate affinity for self and express Fox3P
to distinguish.
Treg mechanisms and the two types
1. Natural (from thymus) 2. Inducible (in periphery) On contacting self-antigen on MHC class 2 - Tregs suppress prolieration of naïve T cells responding to autoantigens on same APC
What favours Fox3P induction?
x
4 factors that affect tolerance
- Timing
- Dose of antigen
- Amount of co-stimulation
- Location
Explain why graft accepted if bone marrow
injected at birth but not later?
Chimerism established if injected at birth - tolerise developing thymocytes to the foreign
Special case of lack of immune response
and reasons why no immune response
Placenta and fetus which share child’s genotype not mother’s
1. Physical barrier to mother’s T cells
2. Lack of MHC class 1 expression on outer placenta cells ->
not targets for cytotoxic T cells
Experimental tolerance
- Peptide sniffing
2. Co-receptor blockade
Evasion of immune recognition by microbes
- Varying their surface antigens by genetic variation or rearrangement
- Hiding - fungi have immunologically inert coat
- Flu - antigenic drift or shift
Original antigenic sin
Refers to propensity of body’s immune system to react preferentially with antibodies from last infection
e.g. using immunological memory instead of solely to new infection (limiting effectiveness of response
therefore)
During the second reaction, only those epitopes common to the first and seconday strain
stimulate antibody production
(This is for e.g. influenza virus which has different antigens each time)
Bacterial super-antigens
Secrete toxins that indiscriminately activate T cells so failure to mount specific response
Lecture 10// Autoimmunity
x
What is autoimmunity and what can it be
attributed to?
Autoimmunity - when immune system attacks host components causing a pathological change
Attributed to failure of self tolerance