Immunity system complexity (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, June 22, 2020, 10:53 (1398 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The first bold is correct with the word you used 'answers'. Immune cells always follow on board instructions to create a library of answers which are remembered as antibodies or direct engulfing and digesting.

dhw: Thank you. I don’t know why you now try to muddy the waters with your “on board instructions”. Each new disease is a new question, and the answers (antibodies) don’t come into existence until the new disease has struck. The answers will then form instructions on how to tackle the disease, and these are remembered. What other “instructions” are you referring to?

DAVID: Still struggling for cell intelligence. All the immunity cells have standardized built-in reactions to invaders. The antibodies produced are from reactions to antigens (specific molecules) on the surface of the infective organism. The fact that they are standardized means the odd hard-to-control diseases I have mentioned exist.

How can they be standardized when there is a brand new invader? Each new invader requires new antibodies, and every antibody constitutes a new volume in the accumulative library of remembered answers. See below for “instructions”.

QUOTE (under “herd immunity): "From looking at the circulation of measles within island communities, we know it can’t survive for long in places with fewer than about half a million people. This is because it causes lifelong immunity, so once everyone has had it, there are no more hosts to keep it going. Only in larger communities would there be enough new, and therefore susceptible, babies being born for the virus to survive."

dhw: Confirmation that you are not naturally immune to a disease until you have had it – i.e. the library is an on-going accumulation of volumes/answers/instructions.

DAVID: Yes, to 'volumes, answers'. The cells instructions as to how to respond are fixed and do not change.

I still don’t know what “instructions” you are referring to. Do you simply mean the cells must respond to the new invader by finding means of killing it? The means are certainly NOT fixed, since each new invader demands a new response - and sometimes the cells are unable to come up with the goods.