What is immunity?

In order to understand immunity, you need to understand the invading microorganism.

So, microbiology and immunology often go hand-in-hand together.
The immune system: the defense mechanism of the body dedicated to eradicating dangerous
pathogens from the body.
Immune cells: Think of the immune system like a military unit, consisting of generals and
majors and soldiers. Every immune cell plays a critical role in the immune system.
Vaccination
- The greatest triumph of immunology
- 1776: Edward Jenner made the 1st small pox vaccine from vaccinia virus
Commensal microorganisms inhabit healthy human bodies
- More than 500 microbial species live in the healthy human gut (weighs about 10 lbs)
- Commensal = eat at the same table
- Flora: the community of microbial species that inhabits a particular niche
- Commensal organisms
- enhance nutrition by digesting food and making vitamins
- protect against disease
Antibiotic treatment disrupts the natural ecology of the colon
- Clostridium difficile produces a toxin that causes severe diarrhea in pts treated with
antibiotics

Pathogens infectious organisms that cause disease

- Pathogen = any disease causing organism
- Opportunistic pathogen = usually a harmless organism that causes disease when the bodys
defenses are weakened.
- Pathogens: bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites
- Pathogens and their hosts have developed evolutionarily. Humans have a degree of built in
genetic resistance and also lifetime immunity
Barriers to infection
- Skin epithelium the bodys first defense against infection
Epithelium layers of keratinized cells that line the outer surface and inner cavities of the
body. The skin can be damaged by wounds, burns, surgical procedures
- Mucosal surfaces (mucosa) epithelia of inner cavities such as respiratory, gastrointestinal and
urogenital tracts. Mucosal surfaces are continually mathed in mucus that they secrete.
- Mucus thick fluid layer containing glycoproteins, proteoglycans and enzymes that protect
epithelial cells from damage and help to limit infection
- Cilia in the respiratory tract continually remove mucus, cleansing it of unwanted material in

Defensins antimicrobial peptides that kill bacteria, fungi and enveloped viruses