General properties of Immune Responses

Bith humoral and cell-mediated responses have some certain common attributes that enabl them to confer immunit: (1)recognition of self versus nonself, (2)specificity(3)Heterogenicity and(4)memory

1.Recognition of self versus nonself

For the immune system to respond to foriegn substances,it must distingusih between host tissues and sbstances that are foriegn to the host immunologists refer to the normal host substances as self and foriegn substances as non-self. The clonal selction hypothesis,first perposed by he Frank Macfarlane Burnet,in the 1950s,explain one way in immune system might distinguish self from nonself. According to this hypothesis,embryo contain many different lymphocytes,each geneticaly programmed to recognise a particular antigen, and make antibodies to destroy it.IF lymphocyte encounters and recognizes that antigen after dovelopment is complete,it divides repeatedly to produce a clone,a group of identical progeny calls that make the same antibody.If,during embryological dovelopment,it encounters its programmed antigen as a part of normal host substance(self) the lymphocyte is somehow destroyed or inactivated .This mechanism removes lymphocytes that can destroy host tissues ad thereby create Tolerance for self.It also selects for survival lymphocytes that will protect the host from foriegn antigens. Tolerance also can be acquired by irradication during cancer treatment or the administeration of immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection of transplanted organs.The hot losses the ability to detect and respond to foriegn antigen in transplanted organs,but then also fail to respond to infectius organisms.

2.Specificity
By the time the immune system matures at the age 2 to 3 years ,to recognize a vast number of foriegn substances as

non-self.Furthermore it reacts in a different way to each foriegn substance.This property of immune system is called specificity. Due to specificity,each reaction is directed towards a specific foriegn anitgen,and response to one antigen,generaly has no effect on other antigens.However Cross reactions, reactions of a particular antibody with very similar antigens,can occur.For example,certain microorganisms,such as the bacterim that causes the syphilis,have same haptens as some human cells,such as heart muscle cells,although the carrier molecules are quite different.This allows antibodies against this particular hpatens to react with these otherwise vastly different calls. Cross-reactions also occur between strains of bacteria.For example,if three stains of pneumococci can cause pneumonia,and if each produces a particular antigen,A , B , or C, a person who has recovered from an infection with strain A has anti-A antibodies.The person then may also have some resisance to strain B and C because anti-A antibodies cross react (that is,they react with antigens B and C).

3.Heterogeneity
The ability of the immune system to respond specificaly allows it to attack particular antiges.But in a lifetime,the human body encounters a hundreds of different foriegn antigens.The property of heterogeniety (versatility,or flexibility) refers to the ability of the immune system to produce many different kind of antibodies ,each of which react with the different type of apitope(antigenic determinant).When a bacterium or other foriegn agent has more than one kind of antigenic determinent,the immune system may make a different antibody against each.And it is capable of producing antibodies even against foriegn substances,suh as newly synthesized molecules,never before encontered by any immune system.

4.Memory

In addition to its ability to respond specifically to a heterogenous assortment of antigens,the immune sytem has also the ability of memory-- that is,it can recognize substances it has previously encountered. Memory allows the immune system to respond rapidly to defend the body against an antigen to which it has previously reacted.In addition to producing antibodies during its first reaction to the antigen,the immune system also make memory cells that stand ready for years or decades to quickly initiate antibody production.Consequently the immune system responds to second and subsequent exposurs to an antigen much more rapidly than to the first exposure. This prompt response due to "recall" by memory cells is called an "anamnestic response".