Our daily activities expose us to a number of health threatening microbes which are the major agents of diseases. But, let us ask ourselves how comes we don't fall sick often? This brings us back to the concept of immunity. As previously discussed, immunity is comprised of two major parts, the innate and adaptive immunity.
The two parts of the immune system, one is less specific (innate) but quite necessary and the other more specific (adaptive). The innate immunity forms the first line of defense and exists before encountering the pathogens. This type of immunity is comprised of four types of defensive barriers namely; anatomic barriers (skin and mucous membranes), physiologic barriers (temperature, pH and chemical mediators), phagocytic barriers (blood monocytes, neutrophils and tissue macrophages) and the fourth inflammatory barriers.
The adaptive immunity which is more specific is triggered following an antigenic challenge to an organism. The key players in adaptive immunity are the lymphocytes, antibodies and other molecules they produce. This kind of immunity has four characteristics; antigenic specificity, diversity, immunologic memory and self/nonself recognition. It displays antigenic specificity in a sense that it is capable of distinguishing even minor differences between antigens. The diversity is seen where the immune system can generate a fairly huge diversity in its recognition molecules capable of recognizing many unique structures among foreign molecules. The immune system also has memory, that it can easily remember the foreign molecule which it had previously encountered. And the good thing about the immune system is the ability to recognize self from nonself molecules which prevents the body from attacking itself.
Having seen what the innate and adaptive immunity is, we need to know what happens when we are exposed to pathogenic microbes. And what is real happening to our bodies? I mean to the immune system.
..To be continued....
The two parts of the immune system, one is less specific (innate) but quite necessary and the other more specific (adaptive). The innate immunity forms the first line of defense and exists before encountering the pathogens. This type of immunity is comprised of four types of defensive barriers namely; anatomic barriers (skin and mucous membranes), physiologic barriers (temperature, pH and chemical mediators), phagocytic barriers (blood monocytes, neutrophils and tissue macrophages) and the fourth inflammatory barriers.
The adaptive immunity which is more specific is triggered following an antigenic challenge to an organism. The key players in adaptive immunity are the lymphocytes, antibodies and other molecules they produce. This kind of immunity has four characteristics; antigenic specificity, diversity, immunologic memory and self/nonself recognition. It displays antigenic specificity in a sense that it is capable of distinguishing even minor differences between antigens. The diversity is seen where the immune system can generate a fairly huge diversity in its recognition molecules capable of recognizing many unique structures among foreign molecules. The immune system also has memory, that it can easily remember the foreign molecule which it had previously encountered. And the good thing about the immune system is the ability to recognize self from nonself molecules which prevents the body from attacking itself.
Having seen what the innate and adaptive immunity is, we need to know what happens when we are exposed to pathogenic microbes. And what is real happening to our bodies? I mean to the immune system.
..To be continued....
1 comment:
Hi Davis!!!!!!!
Its incredible perfomance and i appreciate what you did. keep it up sir.
MWEGA
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