The Immune System: The Immune System

What role does the immune system play in keeping the body safe? Please be very specific [9 pts]

The immune system plays a vital role in helping the body to fight diseases, as well as pathogens, the disease-causing factors. It is mainly composed of the tonsils and adenoids, the lymph nodes and lymphatic vessels, the spleen, appendix, and bone marrow. The main purpose of the immune system is to assist the body in its struggle to maintain optimal health.

The body’s protection against viruses, bacteria and other types of invasions is our immune system (Tortora, 2014).

The immune system is made up of trillions of specialised cells (white blood cells) that detect and destroy pathogens or their toxins. Some white blood cells, which are

Human beings are born with immunity as well as they acquire it from the environment they grow in. Human innate immunity is assigned the task to hinder the harmful substances from entering the body. These immunity barriers develop a defense line. The innate immunity includes cough, tear enzymes, mucus, skin and the stomach acid. Hence, the role of innate immune system is to stop harmful materials from entering our body. In case the innate immunity is insufficient to fight, there is acquired immunity that fights harmful substances by getting exposed to various antigens. The acquired immunity is developed against specific antigen. Its role is to fight

The human immune system creates a series of responses in the body to defend the body. If a foreign organism, such as a virus or a cold invades your body, it recognizes these foreign organisms, and, in turn, attacks them to get rid of them. One can think of the immune system as an army of many cells which have set up their own bastion in the human body. They have only one job: To defend. The immune system’s cells are various kinds of white blood cells. The human body typically creates about 1000 million white blood cells on a daily basis. A group of these cells, macrophages, establish a patrol of sorts throughout the body killing germs as soon as they enter the body. However, sometimes an infection can cause the macrophages to succumb to it. The body begins to fight back with stronger T- and B-cells.

The organs that make up the lymphatic and immune system are the tonsils, spleen, thymus gland, lymph nodes, and lymphatic vessels. White blood cells (leukocytes), red blood cells (erythrocytes), plasma, and platelets (thrombocytes) make up the blood. Lymphocytes are leukocytes (white blood cells) that help the body fight off diseases. Two types of lymphocytes are B cells and T cells. Lymphocytes recognize antigens, or foreign substances/matter, in the body. Lymphocytes are a classification of agranulocytes, or cells (-cytes) without (a-) granules (granul/o) in the cytoplasm. B cells are created from stem cells, which are located in the bone marrow. B cells respond to antigens by becoming plasma cells. These plasma cells then create antibodies. Memory B cells produce a stronger response with the next exposure to the antigen. B cells fight off infection and bacteria while T cells defend against viruses and cancer cells. A hormone created by the thymus gland called thymosin changes lymphocytes into T cells. The thymus gland is active when you are a child and slowly shrinks, as you get older. T cells bind to the antigens on the cells and directly attack them. T cells secrete lymphokines that increase T cell production and directly kill cells with antigens. There are three types of T cells: cytotoxic T cells, helper T cells, and memory T cells.

The immune systems helps the body fight off the other parts of our bodies and harmful substances such as disease, infection or bacteria. Some strategies for ensuring a healthy immune system are: don’t smoke, move your body which mean exercise regularly, eat diet food such as fruit and vegetable, get a good night sleep and maintain your healthy weight. These strategies are a good way to start giving your immune system the upper hand.

They are known as T- Lymphocytes and B-Lymphocytes. B-cells are usually distinguished with humoral immunity because b-cells circulate freely through the lymph system. Whereas T-cells are distinguished by humoral immune response because they act with antigens within other cells. Once these lymphocyte have been produced with the help of bone marrow stromal cells (which are a type of stem cell that is present in red bone marrow) they are released into the blood stream where they travel up to the thymus, and other lymphoid organs. When B-cells, also known as memory cells, leave the bone marrow, they become activated (true b-cells) This process involves the addition of a membrane protein known as immunoglobin M. (IgM) This membrane protein acts a receptor for antigens. Therefore they can said to be the binding site for antibodies. Once an antigen attaches itself to IgM receptor, a signal transduction pathway occurs through tails that descend down into the cells cytoplasm causing them to release antibodies. The second cell type, T-cells, are produced in the bone marrow, through the the same way B-cells are produced. The only difference is they mature in the thymus. This occurs because they undergo genetic recombination of their alpha

Many people believe that vaccinations are harmful to human beings because they either do not work well enough or in some cases, such as the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination, they may be related to autism. They also may be harmful because of the side effects including soreness, redness, or swelling. However, those are very minor side effects and very common in any vaccine. Others believe that vaccinations are very important to get because they could save someone’s life. There is not any proven fact that vaccinations could be a factor of autism, there are only assumptions being made to this. Parents either want their kids to get vaccinated or want absolutely nothing to do with vaccinations. Even though vaccines have minor side effects and have controversial issues such as autism, there is no evidence for the issue; therefore vaccines are very important because it can prevent diseases from occurring and in some cases, death.

When we are first born the thymus gland excretes three hormones which promotes the growth of the T cells. After puberty the thymus gland begins to shrink.

The lymphatic system plays an important part in the body’s defense against infection (Rockson, 2016).

The immune system is the body's third line of defense. It is a network of several tissues and white blood cells. The tissues of the immune system are bone marrow, thymus, lymph nodes, spleen, tonsils, and adenoids. The white blood cells of the immune system are called lymphocytes (Postlethwait Hopson, Modern Biology).

Have you ever wondered how your body works? Did you ever think about how your body defends itself from outside invaders? Remember the last time you were sick. Did you know how your body fought and killed the sickness? All these questions can be answered by learning about one of the most important systems in your body, the immune system.

Our immune system is the second most complex system in our body. It is made up of organs, cells and proteins that work together to protect our bodies from harmful bacteria, viruses or other microorganisms that can cause diseases. Usually we don’t notice our immune system defending us against pathogens, but if the pathogen (harmful microorganism) is aggressive or if our body hasn’t ever come into contact with it, we can get sick. The jobs of our immune system are to recognise pathogens, as well as neutralise and remove them from our body. Our immune system also has to fight our own cells if they have changed due to an illness, for example, cancer. (1)