Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Immune System (
Chapter Summary)
  1. Immunology as a science has a short history.
  2. Innate immunity in vertebrates is nonspecific; it protects through two mechanisms.
  3. Acquired immunity in vertebrates is that achieved through experience because of either recovery from disease or medical intervention.
  4. Clonal selection of lymphocytes explains diversity, specificity, and memory.
  5. The immune system has two levels of development.
  6. The architecture and mechanisms of the immune system are varied and complex. An Overview.

Chapter 2: Cells and Organs of the Immune System (Chapter Summary)

  1. The immune system is made up of four major kinds of cells.
  2. The organs of the immune system are repositories for immune cells.

Chapter 3: Antigens (Chapter Summary)

  1. Antigens may exhibit immunogenicity.
  2. An antigen has four specific features.
  3. Antigenic determinants (epitopes) are the contact points for the immune system's elements.
  4. Haptens, antigenic but not immunogenic molecules, can be used to test the specificity of antibodies.
  5. Antigenic determinants of macromolecules act as their fingerprints.

Chapter 4: Antibody Structure and Function (Chapter Summary)

  1. The structure of an antibody is related to its function.
  2. There are five classes of antibodies on the structure of their heavy-chain C domains.
  3. The biological effector functions of antibodies are mediated by the C domains.
  4. Monoclonal antibodies are pure antibodies with single antigenic determinant specificities.

Chapter 5: Antigen-Antibody Reactions (Chapter Summary)

  1. Primary antigen-antibody reactions occur when individual antigenic determinants bind to their appropriate antibody-combining sites.
  2. Secondary antigen-antibody reactions occur when primary antigen-antibody complexes aggregate to form large, visible lattices.

Chapter 6: The Genetics of Antibody Formation (Chapter Summary)

  1. The genetic basis of antibody diversity is explained by the random recombination of inherited variable-region gene segments.
  2. Several physiologic processes affect immunoglobulin gene expression.

Chapter 7: The Major Histocompatibility Complex (Chapter Summary)

  1. Immunogeneticists developed specially bred strains of mice to characterize the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and to study the genetics of the immune response.
  2. Immunogeneticists used serologic and genetic analyses of linkage to characterize the human MHC.
  3. The MHC is a cluster of genes responsible for molecules that are essential to T-cell function.

Chapter 8: Major Histocompatibility Complex Restriction (Chapter Summary)

  1. The immune response (lr) genes are MHC-linked and encode structures that allow immune functions.
  2. Immune responsiveness is controlled by the effects either on peptide binding to class II MHC molecules or on T-cell repertoire generation.
  3. MHC restriction means that T cells are programmed to interact with foreign peptides on cells only in association with class I or class II MHC molecules.

Chapter 9: The T-Cell Receptor Complex: T-Cell Activation By Processed Antigen and Cell Surface-Associated Costimulatory Molecules (Chapter Summary)

  1. Characterization of the TCR was difficult.
  2. The structure of the TCR resembles in some ways the Fab portion of immunoglobulin.
  3. The gene organization and diversification of the TCR resemble the immunoglobulin molecule's gene organization and diversification.
  4. TCR association with the invariant proteins of the CD3 complex is required for TCR expression and T-cell activation.
  5. The TCR for antigen is also the receptor for MHC molecules; antigen recognition involves a trimolecular complex.
  6. Antigen recognition requires antigen processing and preferential presentation of peptides by either class I or class II MHC molecules.
  7. Antigen recognition requires accessory molecules (or coreceptors).
  8. The molecular basis of T-cell activation, through the TCR complex, is by two second messenger pathways.

Chapter 10: Cytokines (Chapter Summary)

  1. The recognition of cytokines' importance originated with the realization that they maintain T-cell growth and activate lymphocytes.
  2. Cytokines are involved in communication among leukocytes.
  3. Other major cytokines are the colony-stimulating factors and cytotoxic cytokines.

Chapter 11: Cellular Interactions: Development of Effector Functions (Chapter Summary)

  1. The immune response develops sequentially.
  2. There are two types of immune responses.
  3. The development of an immune response requires cellular cooperation.

Chapter 12: Immunoregulation (Chapter Summary)

  1. The immune response can be regulated by antigen.
  2. In the right context, any T cell can be a suppressor T cell and downregulate an immune response.
  3. Immune regulation affecting B and T cells can work through an interlocking network of receptors.
  4. Balancing between antagonistic cytokines is a key determinant in the development of a particular type of immune response.
  5. Antibodies, the end products of humoral immune responses, also regulate through feedback inhibition.

Chapter 13: Immunologic Tolerance (Chapter Summary)

  1. The study and understanding of tolerance began around 1900.
  2. The major characteristic of tolerance is a secondary "nothing" response.
  3. The principal mechanisms that induce self-tolerance activation (anergy), or regulated inhibition of antigen-reactive T and B cells.

Chapter 14: Complement (Chapter Summary)

  1. Scientists had to solve a conundrum: the fact that some in vivo and some in vitro interactions are opposite.
  2. There are two pathways for complement activation: by antigen-antibody complexes or by microbial constituents.
  3. Complement activation is controlled by limiting the affects of activation to the site of antigen deposition.
  4. Macrophages and hepatocytes are the major sources of complement; complement deficiencies are associated with an increased tendency to pyogenic infections.
  5. The genes for some complement proteins are in the MHC.

Chapter 15: Hypersensitivities (Chapter Summary)

  1. Preamble: The Gel and Coombs classification divides immune functions into four categories of hypersensitivity.
  2. Type I: Immediate (anaphylactic) hypersensitivity is mediated by IgE antibodies.
  3. Type IV: Cell-mediated (delayed-type) hypersensitivity is mediated by T cells and activated macrophages, not antibodies.

Chapter 16: Autoimmunity (Chapter Summary)

  1. Autoimmunity, in which the body turns against itself, leads to autoimmune diseases and even self-destruction.
  2. Autoimmune disease states are either organ-specific or systemic and are a consequence of either cell-mediated or humoral dysfunction.
  3. Treatments of autoimmune diseases are moving from counteracting the effects of autoimmunity with nonspecific treatments to specifically preventing the causes.

Chapter 17: Transplantation Immunology (Chapter Summary)

  1. The terminology used to describe transplantation immunology was contributed by geneticists, immunologists, and surgeons.
  2. Graft rejection is immunologic; it is immunity against good nonself.
  3. Transplantation, or histocompatibility, antigens are foreign antigens on the donor's life-saving "invader" tissue that leads to its destruction.
  4. Histocompatibility testing, the matching of nonself to self, equals graft survival.
  5. Immunosuppressive prevention of graft rejection is the inhibition of the response to nonself.
  6. Privileged transplants survive because they are inaccessible to the immune system; the fetus is an almost perfect allograft.
  7. Many human organs and tissues can be transplanted, including blood, kidneys, hearts, corneas, skin, and bone marrow.

Chapter 18: Tumor Immunology (Chapter Summary)

  1. Early theories about the connections between tumor growth and tumor immunity were supported by later studies.
  2. While cancers are made up of cells that have lost their ability to stop growing and multiplying, they usually are not deadly until they move.
  3. Even though environmental factors are identifiable causes of cancer, cancers are mainly a dysfunction of genes.
  4. Tumors are characterized by their associated antigens.
  5. Immune surveillance is one theory that explains the mechanism by which the immune system keeps cancers from arising.
  6. Cellular immunity against tumors involves different cells and their weapons.
  7. Tumors camouflage themselves to evade antitumor defenses.
  8. Immunotherapy involves fighting cancer by using our built-in pharmacy of molecules.

Chapter 19: Immunomodulation (Chapter Summary)

  1. Immunoenhancement reinforces the immune system.
  2. Immunoenhancement disarms the immune system.
  3. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS): has the immune system met its match?

Glossary of Commonly Used Immunologic Terms

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Appendixes

Appendix A. Chromosome Location of Some Genes of Immunologic Interest

Appendix B. Cluster of Differentiation (CD) Molecules

Appendix C. The Four Cell-Cycle Phases of a Mammalian Cell

Appendix D. Type, Letter Codes, and Codons of Amino Acid Residues

Appendix E. Molecular Biology Refresher

Appendix F. HLA Class I and II Molecules

Index


From Immunology: Understanding the Immune System by Klaus D. Elgert
Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.