Complete summary of the course Immunology (AB_1144) from the 1st year of biomedical sciences, VU Amsterdam. This summary contains all information needed for the exam, and includes all the material from the lectures and the book that was required for this course. This summary was made during my firs...
,Chapter 1 | Elements of the immune system and their roles in defense 3
Chapter 2 | Immediate response to infection: complement 7
Chapter 3 | Innate immunity: the induced response to infection 9
Chapter 4 | Antibody structure & BCR diversity 14
Chapter 5 | Antigen recognition by T lymphocytes 19
Chapter 6 | The development of B lymphocytes 24
Chapter 7 | The development of T lymphocytes 29
Chapter 8 | T cell mediated immunity 32
Chapter 9 | B cell mediated immunity 36
Chapter 10 | Preventing infection at mucosal surfaces 40
Techniques in Immunology 43
Chapter 11 | Immunological memory and vaccination 45
Chapter 13 | Failures of the body’s defenses 49
Chapter 14 | IgE-mediated immunity and allergy 53
Chapter 16 | Autoimmune diseases 56
Chapter 17 | The immune system and cancer 58
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, Chapter 1 | Elements of the immune system and their roles in defense
- Why do we have an immune system?
- Our immune system ensures we stay healthy
- Immune system: a di use+complex network of interacting cells, cell products, and cell-
forming tissues that protects the body:
- From pathogens and other foreign substances (e.g. viruses/bacteria/parasites/
fungi)
- Destroys infected+malignant cells (to eliminate tumor growth)
- And removes cellular debris; wound healing
- Immunity:
- Our immune system needs to discriminate between self vs non-self AND harmless vs
harmful
- Pathogens — non-self + harmful
- Microbiome — non-self + harmless; keeps us healthy, so don’t want immune
system to ght them o
- Cancer — self + harmful; own cells that grown unnaturally and cause disease
- Tissues+organs — self + harmless
- Tissues: group of cells with similar structures, working together to perform a
shared function
- Organs: structures made up of a group of tissues, working together to
perform speci c functions
- Health — immune response towards harmful substances (either self or non-self);
no immune response towards harmless
- There is a delicate balance in immune activation (in ammation) and inhibition
(tolerance)
- The balance between tolerance and in ammation always needs to be restored
- A dysbalance in immunity can cause (severe) diseases
- Infection — non-self + harmful
- Allergy — non-self + harmless
- Cancer — self + harmful; no reaction to harmful cells -> cancer
- Auto-immune disease — self + harmless
- Disease — immune response towards harmless substances (either self or non-
self); no immune response towards harmful
- How to treat immune-related disease?
- In order to restore the balance of in ammation-tolerance; disease -> health
(immune response towards harmless -> harmful)
- Infection -> vaccines
- Cancer + auto-immune disease -> immunotherapy
- Before we can use our immune system for treatment, we need to know what the right
balance is, how it’s achieved, and what exactly causes dysbalance
- Innate vs adaptive immunity - components:
- In our blood we can nd multiple immunological components:
- Red blood cells / erythrocytes
- Platelets
- Plasma (consisting of molecules: antibodies+complement)
- Complement is proteins, not cells
- White blood cells / leukocytes (divided into di erent types of immune cells:
neutrophil, eosinophil, basophil, monocyte, lymphocyte)
- Neutrophil is most abundant, followed by lymphocyte
- -> draw blood for research
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, - These cells+molecules are subdivided in 2 main immunological categories: innate vs
adaptive immunity
- Innate immunity consists of:
- Granulocytes (containing toxic granules): basophil + eosinophil + neutrophil
- Monocyte
- Complement
- Lymphocyte -> NK cells
- Adaptive immunity consists of:
- Lymphocyte -> B cells + T cells
- Antibodies
- Lymphocyte is subdivided in both innate and adaptive immunity -> NK cells
(innate) and B+T cells (adaptive)
- Hematopoiesis: the development of immune cells with 2 important common precursors
- Hematopoietic stem cell — found in bone marrow
- -> common lymphoid precursor -> lymphocytes (adaptive, except NK cells)
- B cell (-> plasma cell) + T cell (-> e ector T cell) + NK cell
- -> common myeloid precursor -> myeloid cells (innate)
- Granulocytes (incl. mast cell) + monocyte (-> macrophage + dendritic cell)
- Platelets + erythrocytes (from di erent progenitor)
- Monocytes have a di erent function due to di erent precursor
- Granulocytes have common precursor and are relatively similar, but react to
di erent things
- Macrophages, dendritic cells, and mast cells can be found in our tissues; other
cells can be found in our blood
- Dendritic cells are innate immune cells, but is very important for activation of
adaptive immune cells
- Immunity is subdivided into 3 lines of defense based on the speed of activation upon
danger:
1. Innate immunity — physical/epithelial barriers (skin, mucous membranes,
chemicals, low pH that make sure pathogens don’t get in)
2. Innate immunity — innate immune cells (phagocytosis, complement,
interferon, in ammation, fever)
3. Adaptive immunity — adaptive immune cells (lymphocytes, antibodies)
- We have innate and adaptive immunity including circulatory system (white blood cells,
antibodies, complement) and lymphatic system:
- The lymphatic system is subdivided into primary and secondary lymphoid
organs with di erent functions:
- Primary — development of adaptive immune cells: bone marrow (B cells),
thymus (T cells)
- Secondary — activation of adaptive immune cells: lymph nodes (present
everywhere in body), spleen, Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissues (GALT)
- Secondary lymphoid organs are highly structured with speci c sites for T cell
and B cell activation (T cell zone, B cell follicle, germinal center)
- Dendritic cells activate T+B cells in secondary lymphoid organs during infection
- Innate vs adaptive immunity - function:
- Your innate and adaptive immune system di er in the speed and speci city of
inducing immunity:
- Innate immunity - response against danger: immediate+fast (minutes, hours),
equal in all of us (‘existing in one from birth’), pathogen recognition receptors
- Adaptive immunity - response against danger: adapted+slow (days, weeks),
highly speci c for each type of danger (‘able to adapt’ -> di erent in all of us),
broad repertoire speci c receptors, memory (gives immunity)
- Macrophages and neutrophils are fast responders upon bacterial infection and
induce in ammation
- Macrophages present in tissue; neutrophils present in blood
- Healthy skin is not in amed
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