BIOL 3120 Chapter Notes -Innate Immune System, Signal Transduction, Phagocytosis
Document Summary
The innate immune system is triggered by pathogen associated molecular patterns (pamps) as well as damage-associated molecular patterns (damps). Pamps are reoccurring patterns of molecular structures in pathogens, which are recognized by pattern recognizing receptors in cells. Damps are elements of dead, dying or damaged cells that are also identified by pattern recognizing receptors. Both pamps and damps trigger an immune response activating signal transduction pathways to phagocytosis. In order to avoid phagocytosis of normal human cells, the immune system must ensure it"s eliminating the right cell at the right time, meaning it must be able to distinguish between self and non self (antigen) cells. Immunological tolerance is used to discriminate self/non-self cells allowing your immune systems to attack only foreign material rather than its own cells. Tolerance is acquired when your immune system is unresponsive to an antigen from prior exposure to it. In other words, self- tolerance is when the immune system is unresponsive to its own macromolecules.
