Biology Concepts & Applications
10 Edition
Chapter 37
Immunity
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37.1 Integrated Responses to Threats
• Humans evolved defenses that protect our bodies
– Immunity: organism’s capacity to resist and combat
infection
– Antigen: molecule or particle that the immune system
recognizes as nonself; triggers an immune response
PAMPs: pathogen-associated molecular patterns, ~1000 nonself
molecules that occur mainly on or in pathogenic microorganisms
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Types of Immunity
• Innate immunity: set of immediate, general
defenses against infection
• Adaptive immunity: set of immune defenses that
can be tailored to specific pathogens encountered
by an organism during its lifetime
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Vertebrate Immunity Responses
TABLE 34.1
Comparing Vertebrate Innate and Adaptive Immunity
Innate Immunity Adaptive Immunity
Response time Immediate About a week
Antigen About 1,000 PAMPs Billions of potential
recognition antigens
Specificity of General response Response specific to
response pathogen that triggers it
Persistence None Long-term
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Three Lines of Defense
• First line of defense: physical, chemical, and
mechanical barriers
• Second line of defense: innate immunity
• Third line of defense: adaptive immunity
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A Physical Barrier
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The Defenders
• White blood cells participate in both innate and
adaptive immune responses
– Cytokines: signaling molecules secreted by white blood
cells
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Types of Leukocytes
• Neutrophils: circulating phagocyte
• Macrophage: phagocyte; patrols tissues and fluids
• Dendritic cell: phagocyte; alerts immune system to
presence of antigen
• Eosinophil: targets multicelled parasites
• Basophil: circulating WBC with granules
• Mast cell: contains granules; anchored in many
tissues; factor in inflammation
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Types of Lymphocytes
• B cell: makes antibodies
• T cell: central to adaptive immunity; targets infected
or cancerous cells
• NK cell (natural killer cell): lymphocyte that can kill
cancer cells undetectable by cytotoxic T cells
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37.2 The First Line of Defense—Surface
Barriers
• Normal flora: microorganisms that typically live on
human surfaces
– Includes microorganisms on the interior tubes and
cavities of the digestive and respiratory tracts
• Benefits of normal flora
– Prevent dangerous pathogens from colonizing
– Help us digest food
– Make essential nutrients
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Biological Barriers
• Normal flora are helpful only on body surfaces
– Can cause or worsen many conditions when they
invade tissues
Propionibacterium acnes colonize within interior of blocked hair
follicles
Dental plaque: found on teeth; thick biofilm composed of
bacteria, their extracellular products, and saliva proteins
o Collection of anaerobic bacteria and archaea accumulate
in deep pockets of gum epithelium; can cause periodontitis
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Dental Plaque
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Physiological and Anatomical Barriers
• Blood and tissue fluids are typically sterile
• Surface barriers prevent normal flora from entering
the body’s internal environment
– Examples
Tough outer layer of skin
Epithelial tissues that line the body’s interior tubes
o Cells of epithelium contain lysozyme (enzyme that kills
bacteria)
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Surface Barriers
TABLE 34.2
Examples of Surface Barriers
Biological Established populations of microbiota
Physiological Secretions(sebum, other waxy
coatings); low pH of urine, gastric juices,
urinary and vaginal tracts; lysozyme
Anatomical Epithelia that line tubes and cavities
such as the gut and eye sockets; skin;
mucus; broomlike action of cilia; flushing
action of tears. Saliva, urination,
diarrhea
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37.3 Mechanisms of Innate Immunity
• Complement Activation is triggered by:
– Components of damaged cells
– Antigen or antibodies bound to antigen
• Activated complement proteins activate a cascade
of other complement proteins
• Mechanisms of complement proteins:
– Recruit phagocytic cells
– Cause cells to burst
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Phagocytosis
• Phagocytic cells (dendritic cells, macrophages, and
neutrophils) follow a complement gradient back to
its origin
– Dendritic cells present antigen to T cells
– Macrophages secrete cytokines to alert adaptive immune
system
– Neutrophils release enzymes and toxins that destroy all
cells in the vicinity
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Inflammation
• Local response to tissue damage or infection;
characterized by redness, warmth, swelling, and
pain
– Inflammation begins when a white blood cell degranulates
– Blood flow increases, carrying immune cells to the
infected area
– Complement-coated invading cells are easy targets for
the phagocytic cells
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Fever
• Temporary internally induced rise in core body
temperature above the normal set point
– Cytokines stimulate brain cells to make and release
prostaglandins
Prostaglandins act on the hypothalamus to raise the body’s
internal temperature set point
• Fever enhances immune defenses by increasing
the rate of enzyme activity
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37.4 Antigen Receptors (1 of 3)
• Adaptive immunity mechanisms are triggered by
white blood cells that detect antigen via antigen
receptors
– T cell receptor: antigen receptor on the surface of a T cell;
recognizes nonself and self markers
MHC markers: self-proteins on the surface of human body cells
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Antigen Receptors (2 of 3)
• Antibodies: Y-shaped antigen receptor proteins
made only by B cells
– Do not kill pathogens directly; activate complement and
facilitate phagocytosis
• B cell receptor: antigen receptor on the surface of B
cell; antibody is attached to B cell’s plasma
membrane
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Antibody Structure (3 of 3)
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Classes of Antibodies
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Antigen Receptor Diversity
• Humans can make billions of unique antigen
receptors
– As a B cell or T cell differentiates, it ends up with one of
about 2.5 billion different combinations of gene segments
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37.5 Overview of Adaptive Immunity
• Antibody-mediated immune response: B cells are
triggered to make antibodies specific to a detected
antigen
• Cell-mediated immune response: cytotoxic T cells
and NK cells destroy infected or cancerous body
cells
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Cells Involved in Adaptive Immunity
• Effector cell: antigen-sensitized B cell or T cell that
forms in an immune response and acts immediately
• Memory cell: long-lived, antigen-sensitized B cell or
T cell that can act in a secondary immune response
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Defining Characteristics of Adaptive Immunity
• Self/nonself recognition of MHC markers and
antigens
• Specificity toward antigens
• Diversity of antigen receptors
• Memory of an antigen
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Antigen Processing (1 of 3)
• T cell receptors recognize and bind only to antigen
that has been processed by an antigen-presenting
cell
• Antigen-presenting cells
– Macrophages
– B cells
– Dendritic cells
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Antigen Processing (2 of 3)
• Endocytic vesicle forms around a bacterium as
it is engulfed by a phagocytic cell
• Vesicle fuses with a lysosome, which contains
enzymes and MHC molecules
– Enzymes digest the bacterium to molecular bits,
which bind to MHC molecules
• Vesicle fuses with cell’s plasma membrane
– Antigen–MHC complex displayed on the cell
surface
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Antigen Processing(3 of 3)
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37.6 Adaptive Immunity I: An Antibody-Mediated
Response
• Humoral response: B cells are triggered to make
antibodies to a specific antigen
• Secreted antibodies bind to the antigenic particle
– Facilitates uptake by phagocytic white blood cells
– Neutralizes a toxin and helps eliminate pathogens from
the body
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Antibody-Mediated Response(1of 2)
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Antibody-Mediated Immune Response (2 of 2)
• Theory of clonal selection: B cell was “selected”
because its receptors bound to an antigen
– B cells with receptors that did not bind the antigen do not
divide to form huge clonal populations
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Agglutination
• Tremendous amount of antibodies circulating in the
blood cause agglutination
– Clumping together of foreign cells bound by antibodies
– The clumps attract phagocytic cells
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Antibodies in ABO Blood Typing
• H antigen: carbohydrate that forms on the surface
of red blood cells
• Types of blood
– A blood (A type H antigen); anti-B present
– B blood (B type H antigen); anti-A present
– AB blood (A and B type H antigens); no antibodies
present
– O blood (no H antigens present); anti-A and anti-B
present
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37.7 Adaptive Immunity II: The Cell-Mediated
Response
• A cell-mediated immune response involves the
production of cytotoxic T cells and other
lymphocytes that recognize specific intracellular
pathogens
– Does not involve antibodies
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Cell-Mediated Immune Response
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The Role of NK Cells
• Unlike cytotoxic T cells, NK cells can kill body cells
that lack MHC markers
– Stressed body cells with normal MHC markers are not
killed; only those with altered or missing MHC markers
are destroyed
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Cytotoxic T Cells
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38.8 Immunity Gone Wrong
• Allergen: normally harmless substance that
provokes an immune response
– Examples: drugs, foods, pollen, dust mite feces, fungal
spores, and venom
• Allergy: sensitivity to an allergen
• First exposure: B cells make/secrete IgE
• Later exposure: antigen binds to the IgE
– Histamines and prostaglandins are released
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Allergies
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Overly Vigorous Responses
• Exposure to an allergen sometimes causes a
severe, whole-body allergic reaction called
anaphylactic shock
– Huge amounts of inflammatory molecules are released all
at once
– Too much fluid leaks into tissues, causing a sudden and
dramatic drop in blood pressure
– Rapidly swelling tissues constrict the airways and may
block them
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Autoimmune Disorders
• The thymus has a built-in quality control mechanism
that weeds out T cells with defective receptors
– If this mechanism fails, mature lymphocytes that do not
discriminate between self and nonself may be produced
• Autoimmune response: immune response that
inappropriately targets one’s own tissues
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Immune Evasion
• The immune system sometimes fails to respond to a
pathogen
– Often due to evolved defenses in the pathogen
– May be due to direct interferences with immune response
• Even a small structural change in a viral envelope
protein or bacterial carbohydrate can render
lymphocytes useless
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37.9 AIDS
• AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome):
develops as the result of infection by the HIV virus
• HIV mainly infects macrophages, dendritic cells,
and helper T cells
– With time, the immune system becomes progressively
less effective at fighting HIV
– Eventually, secondary infections and tumors kill the
patient
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Global HIV Cases
TABLE 34.6
Global HIV Cases
Region People Living With HIV New HIV Infections
Sub-Saharan Africa 25,800,000 1,400,000
Asia and the Pacific 5,000,000 340,000
Western/Central Europe 2,400,000 85,000
and North America
Latin America 1,700,000 87,000
Central Asia/Eastern 1,500,000 140,000
Europe
Caribbean Islands 280,000 13,000
Middle East/North Africa 240,000 22,000
Approx. worldwide total 36,900,00 2,087,00
Source: Joint United Nations Programme HIV/AIDS, 2015 report
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HIV Transmission
• Routes of HIV transmission
– Unprotected sex with infected partner
– Mother-to-child during pregnancy, labor, delivery, or
breast-feeding
– Syringes shared by intravenous drug abusers
– Blood transfusions (more common in underdeveloped
countries)
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HIV Treatment
• Drugs cannot cure AIDS, but they can slow its
progress
• Most drugs target processes unique to retroviral
replication
• A three-drug mixture of one protease inhibitor plus
two reverse transcriptase inhibitors is currently the
most successful AIDS therapy
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Application: Community Immunity
• Immunization: procedures designed to induce
immunity
– Vaccine: elicits immunity to a specific antigen
• The first vaccine was developed in the late 1700s, a
result of desperate attempts to survive devastating
smallpox epidemics
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Community Immunity
• Some diseases, such as measles, are extremely
infectious
– 90% of infection in unvaccinated person
• Many are now electing to skip vaccinations in their
children
– Often due to unfounded, unsupported worries about
increased risk of autism
• Community Immunity is only effective if 92% of the
population is vaccinated
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Discuss
• Why don’t antibiotics work on viruses? What leads
to antibiotic resistance?
• Why is the seasonal flu vaccine less effective than a
more specific vaccine like the H1N1 flu vaccine?
• Fever and inflammation are natural responses of
our immune system. Is it wise to take over-the-
counter medications to reduce these responses?
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