immunology

Waleed Abdelateif.PhD 1
Definitions and functions of immune
system
• Immunology: is study of immune system
• Immunity:
1)Traditional concept: Immunity refers to
protection against infectious diseases.
2)Modern concept: Immunity is a function of
which an individual immune system
recognizes and excludes antigenic foreign
substances. It is normally beneficial, but
sometimes it is injurious.
Waleed Abdelateif.PhD 2
• The collection of cells, tissue , and molecules
that mediate resistance to infections is called
immune system
• The coordinated reaction of these cells and
molecules to infectious microbes is the
immune response

Waleed Abdelateif.PhD 3
 Immunology Terms
• Pathogen
– Microorganism that can cause disease
• Antigen
– Any molecule that binds to immunoglobulin or T cell receptor
• Immunoglobulin (Ig)
– Antigen binding molecules of B cells
• Antibody (Ab)
– Secreted immunoglobulin
• Immunization
– The ability to resist infection
• Vaccination
– Deliberate induction of protective immunity to a pathogen
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 Functions of immune system
Immune defense: prevents the body from
infections (bacterial, parasitic, fungal and viral
infections)
Immune hemostasis: eliminate injured cells,
old or senile cells and tolerate its components
Immune surveillance: destroy and killed
abnormal cell, transformed cells (tumor cell)
and infected cells and also prevent persistence
infections

Waleed Abdelateif.PhD 5
 Functions and Manifestation of Immunity

Functions Normal Manifestation Abnormal Manifestation

Immune Anti-infection Hypersensitivity

Defense Immunodeficiency

Immune Eliminate injured and senile cell

Homeostasis Tolerate self components Autoimmune disease

Immune destroy transformed cells Tumor or

Surveillance (anti-tumor ) Persistent virus infection
Prevent from persistent infection
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 Components of immune system
• Immune system compose from cells, tissues,
organs, and plasma proteins
 Cells:
• Phagocytic cells ( macrophages (monocytes in
blood), dendritic cells, neutrophil
• Eosinophil
• basophil
• Lymphocytes (T cell subsets, B cell, and natural
killer cell (NK)
• Others cells

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 Cells of the Immune system
• Many cells of the
immune system
derived from the
bone marrow
• Hematopoetic
stem cell
differentiation

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Tissues: that involve in immune system are;

A-primary lymphoid organ or central:

-bone marrow (maturation of B cell)

- thymus (maturation of T cells)

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B- secondary lymphoid organ or peripheral:

• which consist of the lymph nodes, the spleen,

and the mucosal and cutaneous immune
systems

• cutaneous and mucosal lymphoid systems are

located under the epithelia of the skin, and the
gastrointestinal(Peyer's patches of the
intestine) and respiratory tracts( Pharyngeal
tonsils and) Waleed Abdelateif.PhD 10
• Lymph nodes are nodular aggregates of
lymphoid tissues located along lymphatic
channels throughout the body

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Organ, most important one is spleen, The
spleen is an abdominal organ that serves the
same role in immune responses to blood
borne antigen as that of lymph nodes in
responses to lymph-borne antigens.

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Waleed Abdelateif.PhD 15
Plasma proteins; eq:
- complement factors
- CRP (C-reactive protein)
- cytokines and chemokines
- Antibodies

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