Prelim 1 Flashcards
(211 cards)
What is the purpose of the immune system?
The purpose of the immune system is to maintain the healthy state of homeostasis
Vaccines
Deliberately stimulate the immune system
Vaccinated people make long-lived B cells and T cells to recognize the smallpox virus when it infects. These memory cells activate, VIGOROUSLY cloning themselves into 1000’s of defenders and antibodies. Antibodies and immune cells tag and eliminate the virus quickly
Most vaccines prevent ___ not __
Disease not infection
Infection
Invasion of barriers and usually replication of microbes within the host
Infectious disease
Unhealthy state caused by infection with a pathogen. It may be due to damage from the microbe and a vigorous immune response.
Pathogens
- Cause infectious disease
- Bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.
- They typically infect hosts through mouths, eyes, noses, gut, reproductive tract, open wounds, or insect bites
Immunity
The ability to resist disease caused by a pathogen using pathogen-specific defenses (antibodies, memory B cells and memory T cells)
Why don’t vaccines work great?
Because they mutate so frequently.
ex. antibodies that are specific to an antigen won’t be able to bind super well to a mutated version of the virus so they won’t be able to neutralize as great
What is the immune system’s strategy for dealing with threats?
- Recognize and tag
- Activate
- Eliminate by any means necessary
How are fungi and parasites taken care of since they are too large to be phagocytosed?
- They are expelled from the body (nose, mouth, diarrhea) so toxins are secreted
Commensal microbe
co-exists on the outer barriers. Doesn’t infect because it is successfully repelled by immune system. Does not cause disease; some are beneficial. Low threat.
Opportunistic pathogen
A microbe that is usually harmless but causes disease in some situations (opportunities). Commensal microbes can be opportunistic, like Pneumocystis jiroveci which infects and kills AIDs patients who have lost T cell immunity.
What are the names of immune cells?
Leukocytes
Leukocytes
General term for an immune cell (aka white blood cell). Lymphocytes, monocytes, and granulocytes are all leukocytes
Where are leukocytes derived from?
A pluripotent multipotent hematopoietic stem cell made in the bone marrow
Hematopoiesis
Generation of leukocytes, erythrocytes (red blood cells), & platelets from a common pluripotent stem cell by step-wise, irreversible development changes. As a stem cell differentiates, it proliferates… making many clones of the new cell type that migrate to specific parts of the body
Where do B cells, T cells, NK cells, and ILC cells come from?
Common lymphoid progenitor
Where do Dendritic cells come from?
Common myeloid progenitor
Where do neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, and monocytes come from?
Granulocyte/macrophage progenitor which come from the common myeloid progenitor
Where do macrophages come from?
Monocytes
Where do platelets come from?
Megakaryocyte/ megakaryocyte erythrocyte progenitor
Where do erythrocytes (red blood cells) come from?
Erythroblast / megakaryocyte erythrocyte progenitor
What are the phagocytes?
- Neutrophils
- Macrophages
- Dendritic Cells
What are the granulocytes?
- Neutrophils
- Eosinophils
- Basophils
- Mast cells (allergic response)