Immunity-related diseases

Authors: Moriarty KM
Publication: New Zealand Veterinary Journal, Volume 32, Issue 12, pp 201-207, Dec 1984
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Animal type: General
Subject Terms: Allergy, Biochemistry/chemistry, Clinical pathology, Diagnostic procedures, Immune system/immunology, Disease/defect
Article class: Review Article

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Abstract: INTRODUCTION: Animals are protected from infectious diseases by non-specific and specific mechanisms. The non-specific defenses include a number of physical host factors, such as intact epithelium, mucus secretions and cilia of the respiratory system, which act to prevent or impede infection. Occasionally, either because of trauma or adverse effects of the environment on such barriers or because of the invasiveness of a particular pathogen, an infection becomes established and disease develops; host resistance then becomes mainly a function of specific, acquired immunity. Between the extremes of non-specific and specific immunity lie the quasi-immune phagocytic and complement systems. The phagocytic system, consisting of neutrophils and cells of the monocyte/macrophage series, can act in the absence of an immune response but functions best in the presence of antibody. Similarly, the complex family of proteins that form the complement system can be activated directly by certain micro-organisms to produce opsonic and lytic factors but achieves its full potential in the presence of reacted antibody molecules. If the immune system is taken to include both acquired immunity and the cooperative roles of the phagocytic and complement systems, then a defect in one or other of these three systems will result in some degree of immnne deficiency…

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