Summary and Further Reading

Chapter 1: The Immune System

Summary

• Cells of the primitive innate immune system and the Ag-specific adaptive immune system act as a cooperative network to bring about a coordinated and tightly regulated immune response to foreign Ags 
• The primitive innate immune system uses a limited pattern of recognition molecules and, although it retains no memory, is able to mount a rapid response 
• The Ag-specific adaptive immune system recognises a huge diversity of different specific Ags and elicits a response that is highly specific and retains memory 
• Diversity and Ag specificity in both the TCR and BCR result from somatic recombination and the random splicing of a selected number of gene segments 
• When naïve B cells encounter an Ag, further Ag specificity is added by somatic hypermutation in the GC of secondary lymphoid organs 

• Only the most avid Ag-binding cells mature to become either Ab-producing plasma cells or memory B cells 
• Abs may switch to different classes with differing effector functions and tissue locations while retaining the same Ag specificity in their variable regions 
• In response to Ags, T cells differentiate to effector T cells that may augment the immune response, cytotoxic T cells that destroy altered self-cells, or regulatory T cells 
• CKs regulate the immune response by autocrine, paracrine and endocrine mechanisms 
• Cooperative interactions of both facets of the immune response result in efficient effector mechanisms that clear foreign Ags with residual immunological memory 

Further Reading

• Fugmann SD, Lee AI, Shockett PE, et al. The RAG proteins and V(D)J recombination: complexes, ends, and transposition. Annu Rev Immunol 2000;18:495–527.
• Helbert M. Flesh and Bones of Immunology. Edinburgh: Mosby Ltd., Elsevier; 2006.
• Jaffe ES, Harris NL, Stein H, et al. Introduction and overview of the classification of lymphoid neoplasm. In: Swerdlow SH, Campo E, Harris NL, et al (Eds). WHO Classification of Tumours of Haematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues. Fourth edition. Lyon: International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2008; 158–166.
• Klein U, Dalla-Favera R. Germinal centres: role in B-cell physiology and malignancy. Nat Rev Immunol 2008; 8:22–33.
• Kracker S, Durandy A. Insights into the B cell specific process of immunoglobulin class switch recombination. Immunol Lett 2011; 138:97–103.
• Mucinda D, Cheroutre H. The many face-lifts of CD4 T helper cells. Adv Immunol 2010; 107:139–152.
• Parham P. The Immune System. 5th edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.
• Punt J, Stranford S, Jones P, Owen JA. Kuby Immunology, 8th edition. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2018.
• Rathmell JC, Thompson CB. The central effectors of cell death in the immune system. Annu Rev Immunol 1999; 17:781–828.
• Sun JC, Lanier LL. NK cell development, homeostasis and function: parallels with CD8 T cells. Nat Rev Immunol 2011; 11:645–657.