Immunity Flashcards
What is pathology?
Study of the causes and effects of diseases
What is aetiology?
The cause, set of cause, or manner of causation of a disease of a condition
What is pathogenesis?
Progressive changes as disease develops
What is the surgical sieve?
Is an approach to differential diagnosis.
Differential diagnosis is distinguishing of a particular disease or condition from others that present with similar clinical feature.
Can use mnemonic:
Vitamin CDEF
vascular infective trauma autoimmune metabolic iatrogenic neoplastic congenital degenerative endocrine functional
Differential diagnosis informs which pathological investigations may be required
What are the key organs of the immune system
1) Thymus Where T-cells mature 2) Bone Marrow Yellow tissue in centre of bones responsible for making white blood cells which later become lymphocytes 3) Lymph nodes Produce and store cells that fight infection and disease 4) Spleen Largest lymphatic organ in the body contains white blood cells helps control amount of blood in body
What is the lymphatic system
“the motorway” - linking key organs e.g adenoid tonsils, thymus, spleen, bone marrow
transports clean fluids back to the blood
Drains excess fluid from tissue
removed “debris” from cells of body
Transports fat from digestive system
What type of immunities are there?
1) Innate
2) adaptive
What is innate immunity?
First line of non-specific defense
What is adaptive immunity?
Specific and acquired - second line of defence
What occur in innate immunity
1) Physical barrier to infection e.g. Epithelium/ epithelial layers of skin and mucosal/ glandular tissue
or. Chemical barrier to infection e.g Acidic pH + anti-microbial proteins and peptides
- cytokines/chemokines
2) Cellular responses to infection using innate cell subsets and complement
- phagocytic cells (macrophages, neutrophils)
- antigen-presenting cells (dendritic cells)
3) Chemokines/cytokines
- Chemokine - cells recruitment
- Cytokine - cell activation/ proliferation -> inflammation response
How long does does innate immunity take?
1 - 3 days
-> regular contact with potential pathogens which are destroyed within minutes or hours - only rarely causing disease
What occurs in adaptive immunity
1) B cells (humoral response) (long term immunity)
- production of antibodies -> block infections and eliminate extracellular microbes
2) T cells (cell-mediated response) (communicate with innate cells)
- cell - cell communication
e.g. phagocytosed microbes in macrophages
responded to by - helper T lymph.
Activate macrophages to kill phagocytosed microbe
intracellular microbes e.g. virus replicating withun infected cells
responded to by - Cytolytic T lymp.
kill infected cells and eliminate reservoir of infection
How long does adaptive immunity take?
4 - 10 days
repeated infections met immediately with strong and specific response
What can cause inflammation?
1) Invading micro-organism
2) particular materials (dust, join prostheses)
3) Altered self cells
4) transformed malignant cells (cancer)
What is inflammation?
1) Initiation - response to harmful agent
2) Progression - containment of harmful agent
3) Amplification - modulation of immune response
4) Resolution - healing (acute inflammation) e.g. mild/severe gingivitis
acute - appropriate response to a threat, resolution when no longer required
5) Failure to resolve (chronic inflammation) e.g periodontitis
chronic - unresolved, failure in control mechanism self damage
What is periodontitis and what causes it?
- Chronic inflammatory disease
- Destruction of soft and hard tissues which support teetj
- Plaque build up - microbial dysbiosis (microbial imbalance/maladaption)
- immune dysregulation (ie. removal of plaque not always enough)
name the innate cell subset/ immune cells
- Cells of myeloid origin:
Mast cells Monocytes ->Macrophages Neutrophils Basophil Eosinophil
- Cells of lymphoid origin:
Natural killer cells
Origin?
Dendritic cell
Innate immune cells
Describe the character of monocytes/macrophages
Monocytes - in blood macrophages - in tissue early responder Phagocytose + present antigens bactericidal mechanism
Stimulates response of other immune cells
Describe the character of Mast cells
Granulocytes (contain histamines) Early responders Blood -> tissue Function: protect again pathogens - parasitic worms \+Allergy - histamines -> inflammation
Describe the character of neutrophils
Phagocytic granulocytes most numerous Blood - tissue contain granules bactericidal mechanism Neutrophil extracellular traps -> microbes
Describe the character of basophils and eosinophils
Granulocytes -> degrade enzymes and antimicrobials
large -> defense against parasites (b: anti-parasitic immunity. E: killing of antibody-coated parasites)
allergy -> basophil histamine -> inflammation
Where are defence cells derived from?
Common precursors in bone marrow
Give example of innate and adaptive like immune cells ie the inbetweeners
Natural killer cells
dendritic cells
innate lymphoid cells
Describe the character of dendritic cells
Derived from myeloid + lymphoid lineage several types e.g langerhans cells antigen presenting cell (APC) move tissue -> lymph nodes passing on info activate T cells and B cells (directly) star shaped degrade pathogens (not main function) bridge between innate and adaptive immune responses