IMMUNOLOGY

Historical Perspective
 OVERVIEW OF THE IMMUNE SYSTEM

(1) Immune recognition

- remarkable for its specificity

“ (2) Effector response

- eliminate or neutralize the organism
- memory response (rapid and heightened)
 (1) Thucydides (460-404 B.C.)
- has developed an immunity against plaque
and not worried of catching it again
* Immunis, meaning “exempt”=immunity
(2) Chinese and Turks (15th C)
- The first recorded attempts to induce immunity
(variolation)

(3) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1718)

- wife of the British Ambassador to
Constantinople
- variolation to her own kids
 Edward Jenner (1798) - introduces vaccination or immunization

“
 Edward Jenner (1798) - introduces vaccination or immunization

“
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) - “Father of Microbiology”
“
 Pouilly-le-Fort in 1881
- where he first vaccinated one group of
sheep with heat-attenuated Bacillus anthracis

“
 Joseph Meister
- His first vaccine to

“
a human was
administered to
(1885)
“
Early studies
revealed
humoral and
cellular
components of
the immune
system.
Robert Koch (1843-1910)
- The Germ Theory of Disease
- Koch Postulates
 EARLY THEORIES ATTEMPTED TO EXPLAIN THE SPECIFICITY OF
THE ANTIBODY-ANTIGEN REACTION
(1) Selective Theory (Paul Ehrlich in 1900)
- he proposed that cells in the blood expressed a variety of receptors
which he called “side-chain receptors” that could react with
infectious agents and inactivate them; fit between lock and key

- The specificity of the receptor was determined before its exposure to

an antigen, and the antigen selected the appropriate receptor

- The “receptor” exists as both soluble Ab molecule and as a cell-

bound receptor, it is the soluble form that is secreted rather
than the bound form that is released.

- The theory about the immune response (Ab production)

 EARLY THEORIES ATTEMPTED TO EXPLAIN THE SPECIFICITY OF
THE ANTIBODY-ANTIGEN REACTION

(2) Instructional Theories (late 1930’s and 1940’s)

- Ag played a central role in determining the specificity of an Ab molecule
- A particular Ag would serve as template around which Ab would fold.
The Ab molecule would thereby assumes configuration complementary
to that of the Ag template.
- Disproved in the 1960’s
* Clonal Selection Theory
- An individual lymphocytes expresses membrane receptors that are specific for
distinct Ag. This unique receptor specificity is determined before the lymphocyte
is exposed to the Ag.
- Binding of Ag to its specific receptor activates the cell, causing it to proliferate
into a clone of cells that have same immunologic specificity as the parent cell.
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