The Immune System

Abraham Ponce
March 26th, 2020
Biology Class

Our body is constantly under attack by pathogens. These

pathogens can be around all of our body, from our skin to our innermost
cells. These pathogens intents are using you, and the body’s many
resources, to feed themselves, find shelter and reproduce as much as
they want. The immune system is different from all the other systems in
that it’s not a specific, tissue-organ-system kind of system. The body’s
first line of defense is its innate, or nonspecific, defense system. It
includes phagocytes, antimicrobial cells, and other attack cells. Our skin
is our innate defense system’s first barrier. It keeps bacteria and viruses
away from inner cells. Another organ that aids this system is our acid-
filled stomach. The body also has bacteria-fighting enzymes in saliva
and lacrimal eye fluid, and peptides called defensins in the skin and
membranes that help keep bacteria and fungi from remaining around
inflamed or scraped skin. when you’ve breached that first, simple line of
defense, it’s time to call on your second line of internal innate defenses.

When the first defense system is breached your body starts pulling
strategic maneuvers like firing up a fever, releasing chemical signals,
causing inflammation, or other defensive tactics that help identify and
attack infectious invaders. Some of the first defensive cells on the scene
are your phagocytes. They chase down intruders and eat them. And they
come in a few different varieties: neutrophils, which are the most
abundant type of your white blood cells. They self-destruct after
devouring a pathogen. But the bigger, phagocytes are the macrophages.
They’re derived from monocyte white-blood cells that have moved out
of the blood stream to occupy tissues. And some are free types that
patrol tissues looking for pathogens, while others are fixed – attached to
fibers in specific organs, devouring anything suspicious that passes by.
So, when a macrophage sees a new pathogen passing along, it snares it
using cytoplasmic extensions, reels in it, completely engulfs it, and --
essentially -- digests it and spits the rest out. And unlike neutrophils, it
can do this over and over again. But not all your defense cells are
phagocytic.

You’ve also got cells like the natural killer cells. These tiny cells patrol
the blood and lymph looking for abnormal cells, and are unique in that
they can kill your own cells if they are infected with viruses or have
become cancerous. How can they tell? A normal, healthy cell contains a
special protein on its surface called MHC1, or Major Histocompatibility
Complex. But if it’s infected, it stops making that protein. And if natural
killer cell detects a defective cell, it doesn’t swallow it whole like a
macrophage -- it punctures it with an enzyme that triggers apoptosis, or
programmed cell death. These are some ways your innate immune cells
handle their enemies, but how do they know where to look in the first
place? If there is any kind of rupture in your skin your body will attempt
to contain the spread of pathogens, clean up the mess, and get healing as
quickly as possible, so it cues up your inflammatory response. This is an
internal alarm system, which uses chemicals and you sense redness,
swelling, heat, and pain. For example, in the event of injury, specialized
mast cells in your connective tissue send out histamine molecules. For
one thing, it causes vasodilation, which creates redness and heat at the
site of the injury.

The body’s second type of defense is the adaptive immune system. This
system is very important because it attacks stronger pathogens that the
first line of defense couldn’t neutralize. The adaptive immune system
identifies, memorizes and attacks pathogens for future invasion of the
pathogen in order to attack it more effectively. Another important
characteristic of this adaptive system is that it can attack different
pathogens in different parts of the body. It captures and neutralizes
pathogen by “eating” them and absorbing proteins from the pathogen in
order to identify it if seen again and attack it more effectively. This is the
principle of vaccines. Dead or weakened pathogens are introduced into
the bloodstream in order for the adaptive system to identify the
pathogens, memorize it, and attack it more effectively if ever found in
the body again.

When all failsafe systems have failed to attack or effectively neutralize a

pathogen the body goes to its last resort to destroy these. It deploys T
lymphocytes. These will attack any pathogen-infected cells. T
lymphocytes cause inflammation, activate macrophages, get other T
lymphocytes fired up, and generally regulate much of the immune
response. These cells absorb the damaged or infected cells and “display”
proteins from these dead pathogens in their outer layers. They will
destroy any vestiges of any infected cells and will reproduce very
rapidly to create more of themselves, some memory cells, and some cells
that will aid them in identifying any pathogen.

Immunodeficiencies are one of the worst conditions that the body can
put through. This happens when these T lymphocytes attack healthy
cells because of inability of detecting actually damaged cells. In some
cases, they will simply appear in uncontrolled numbers and also start
attacking the healthy tissues and cells around our body. These T
lymphocyte cells normally bind to other “good” cells in order to
“activate” them by injecting special chemicals into them. When these
cells are present in uncontrolled numbers, they may view “good” cells as
pathogens and instead of “activating” them they will inject a chemical
which will activate an auto-destruction sequence inside the cell.