Glossary of Immunology
ALLERGEN: a foreign substance which causes an allergic reaction.
ALLERGY: an exaggerated and inappropriate immune reaction, which causes damage to body tissues or other unpleasant effects.
ANTIBODIES: defensive molecules produced by plasma cells in response to foreign antigens. They bind to and make harmless the antigens of the kind which activated the plasma cells, and coat the surface of microbes to prepare them for phagocytosis.
ANTIGENS: substances that are foreign to a person's own body and cause immune responses to occur when they are identified by T cells and B cells.
BACTERIUM / BACTERIA: microscopic one-celled organisms that are the cause of many diseases.
B CELL: a lymphocyte that originates in the bone marrow. After contact with antigen in lymphoid tissues it matures into an antibody-producing plasma cell.
COMPLEMENT: a set of molecules in the blood, which bind to immune complexes. It helps to prepare microbes for phagocytosis and release small fragments, which induce inflammation. It can also cause lysis of some bacteria and cells.
CYTOTOXIC: poisonous to cells.
IgA ANTIBODY: the major protective antibody in the intestine and airways
INOCULATE: Introduce matter into a cut or scratch in the skin. (See Variolation)
IMMUNE RESPONSE: the reaction of the body's immune system to foreign materials such as microbes which leads to their destruction or removal from the body.
LYMPHOCYTE: the cells which are responsible for identifying antigens and for activating protective immune responses.
LYMPHOID TISSUE: the tissues of the body where lymphocytes are produced, where they mature and where they are activated. The bone marrow, thymus, lymph nodes, spleen and adenoids, tonsils, Peyer's patches and mesenteric, lymph nodes are all lymphoid tissues.
LYSIS: cellular breakdown
MACROPHAGE: a cell found in tissues, descended from the blood monocyte. It can eat other cells and microbes and break them down once engulfed: it is a phagocytic cell.
MICROBE: a very small (microscopic) living animal or virus.
MOLECULES: the smallest single components of all living things that make up the structure of cells and tissues and perform all the life processes of the cells and the body.
MONOCYTE: a phagocytic cell made in the bone marrow. They circulate in the blood and develop into macrophages.
NEUTROPHIL: the most numerous white cell in the blood. it can eat microbes and destroy them once engulfed: it is a phagocytic cell.
PHAGOCYTIC CELL / PHAGOCYTE: a cell which can eat microbes and other cells or materials. it destroys these once it has engulfed them.
PLASMA CELL: a short-lived cell, descended from a B cell that produces antibody.
T CELL: a lymphocyte that originates in the bone marrow. It matures in the thymus and reacts in lymphoid tissues with foreign molecules to become one of a number of different forms which can combat infection in different ways.
VARIOLATION: The practice of scratching into the skin (usually of children) some matter taken from a part of a person recovering from a mild infection with smallpox. If the amount used was just right this produced only a mild case of smallpox. Wrong treatments could kill or be ineffective. This was practiced by surgeons in Europe during the 18th in an attempt to give immunity to smallpox later in life.
VIRUS: a very small disease-causing agent, capable of multiplying rapidly inside a living cell.
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