Basic Concepts of Immunology

Immunology is a discipline of biology and medicine that studies immune systems in all species. Immunology is used in organ transplantation, cancer, rheumatology, virology, bacteriology, parasitology, psychiatry, and dermatology, to name a few medical fields. Immunology studies the physical, chemical, and physiological characteristics of immune system components in vitro, in vivo, and situ; immune system malfunctions in immunological disorders (such as hypersensitivities, autoimmune diseases, transplant rejection, and immune deficiency); and immune system malfunctions in immunological disorders (such as hypersensitivities, autoimmune diseases, transplant rejection, and immune deficiency).

Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, a Russian biologist who improved immunology research and was awarded the Nobel Prize for his efforts in 1908, invented the name. This was the body’s active response to maintaining its integrity. 

The Immune System:

The immune system is a complex system of structures and functions that have evolved to keep us healthy over time. The components which make the immune system are molecular and cellular components. Nonspecific activities that are basic to an organism and responsive reactions that are adaptable to specific diseases are two sorts of functions performed by these components. The study of the features that make up the innate and adaptive immune systems is known as classical or fundamental immunology.

• Innate Immunity: Nonspecific Innate immunity is the first line of defence. No matter how diverse the infections are, they all have the same reactions. Physical barriers (such as skin, saliva, and cells) and cells make up innate immunity (e.g. neutrophils, macrophages, mast cells, basophils, etc.). These components are pre-assembled and ready to use, ensuring that an organism is protected for the first few days after infection. 
• Adaptive Immunity: The second line of defence is adaptive immunity, which involves the creation of a memory of initial conditions to create a more tailored response to the pathogen or foreign material. Antibodies are utilised in adaptive immunity to target free foreign pathogens in the bloodstream.T cells are also involved since they are focused on infections that have colonised cells and can either kill infected cells directly or help regulate the antibody response. 

Immune Dysfunction and Clinical Immunology: 

The immune system is a highly regulated and managed mechanism, and if the balance is broken, the disease can result. Immune system malfunctions cause two types of conditions: 

• Autoimmune Diseases: Autoimmune illnesses occur when the immune system assaults the body it is designed to protect. Autoimmune diseases are divided into ‘primary’ autoimmune diseases that arise at birth or early in life, such as type-1 diabetes, and secondary’ autoimmune diseases that appear later due to several factors. Rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis are regarded to be examples of autoimmunity. 
• Patients with autoimmune diseases have a deficit that makes it difficult to distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘nonself’ or ‘foreign’ molecules. Furthermore, autoimmune disorders can be localised, like Crohn’s Disease, which affects the gastrointestinal tract, or systemic lupus erythematosus, which affects the entire body (SLE). 
• Immunodeficiency: Immunodeficiency disorders are problems with the immune system that make it harder for the body to fight against infections. As a result, these disorders are most often associated with significant conditions that persist, recur, and induce complications, making them highly debilitating and potentially fatal. The two forms of immunodeficiency disorders are primary and secondary immunodeficiency disorders. 
• Primary immunodeficiencies are congenital, mostly inherited, and relatively uncommon. One example is common variable immunodeficiency (CVID). Secondary immunodeficiencies are more common later in life. They can develop due to an infection, such as HIV infection leading to AIDS. 

Classical Immunology: 

In classical immunology, epidemiology and medicine are tied together. It looks at how the human body’s systems, infections, and immunity interact. Immunology is the scientific study of the molecular and cellular components of the immune system and their function and interaction. Invertebrates have an innate immune system that is more rudimentary than vertebrates’, but vertebrates have an acquired or adaptive immune system.

The immune system can distinguish between self and nonself. Antigens are molecules that cause the immune system to react. Antibodies are proteins that bind to and neutralise disease-causing germs. Antibodies do not directly eliminate infections; instead, they recognise antigens as targets for other immune cells like phagocytes and natural killer cells to destroy (NK cells). Antibodies are specific proteins produced by B lymphocytes, a type of immune cell, and antigens are anything that triggers the production of antibodies (antibody generators).On the basis of physicochemical and antigenic structure Igs are grouped into 5 classes or isotypes namely IgG IgA, IgM, IgD, IgE.

Vaccination and immunisation

(i) Introduction of the disease causing agent (substance or the pathogen) into the body in attenuated or detoxified form that makes the body able to develop antibodies against it.

(ii) Immunisation is the phenomenon of increasing specific antibody production and development of memory B– and T– cells against the potential attack of a pathogen.

(iii) It is carried out through vaccination and injection of antiserum.

(iv) When an immunised person is attacked by the pathogen, the existing antibodies immediately attack the antigen while the memory T and B cells give rise to a massive crop of lymphocytes and antibodies.

Conclusion:

Immunology is a discipline of biomedical science concerned with an organism’s reaction to antigenic challenge and its recognition of what is and is not itself. It is concerned with the organism’s defence mechanisms, including all physical, chemical, and biological features that aid in the organism’s resistance to invading organisms, materials, and other threats. Immunology is concerned with the physiological functioning of the immune system in both health and illness, as well as immune system malfunctions in immunological diseases such as allergies, hypersensitivities, immune deficiency, transplant rejection, and autoimmune disorders. Immunology is used in a multitude of scientific and medical domains.