BSC 2011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Humoral Immunity, Clonal Selection, Hygiene Hypothesis

• School: University of Florida
• Department: Biology - Biological Sciences
• Course: BSC 2011
• Professor: Norman Douglas, Nicole Gerlach, Todd Palmer

Document Summary

Animals have various means of defense against pathogens: pathogens are any organisms that can cause illness. Immunity is the ability to avoid disease when invaded by a pathogen. Innate immunity: present from birth, no exposure is necessary, all animals have this, non-specific to target certain pathogens. Acquired (adaptive) immunity: develops after exposure to a pathogen, only found in vertebrates, specific on a single pathogen basis. Immunity relies on specialized white blood cells and the proteins that they produce: these are the main agents of immunity, lymphocytes. Active in both the innate and acquired immunity. Cells have (cid:862)(cid:373)arkers(cid:863) (a(cid:374)tigens) on their surfaces to indicate what is happening inside the cell: made from intracellular proteins bound to a class 1 mhc protein. Mhc proteins show what antigens are present. During development, the immune system learns to recognize and ignore the self/antigen cells.