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Shoki (Zhong Kui in Chinese), derived from Chinese Taoism, is a god for warding off diseases. According to a legend, one night when Emperor Genso (Xuanzong) of the Tang Dynasty had a high fever, Shoki appeared to him in a dream, killed a monster, and saved the Emperor at last. In tribute to the legend, Shoki has been worshipped as a god who protects people from illness for hundreds of years in China and Japan. The role of Shoki in the legend is that of the immune system itself. In this drawing, Shoki holds asasumata (spear fork) with an IgG‐like spearhead in the right hand and wears a cloth with a crest of IgM and a pattern of a dendritic cell; they are weapons of mammalian adaptive immunity. In contrast, his left hand contains a monster (pathogen) by melanization, which is one of the weapons of the innate immunity of insects. We thank Prof. Hirotaka Kanuka's lab (The Jikei University School of Medicine) for their valuable suggestions for our drawing. Designed by TRAIS Co., Ltd. (Kobe, Japan)
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
genes to cells
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1365-2443
pISSN - 1356-9597
DOI - 10.1111/gtc.12283
Subject(s) - legend , emperor , taoism , monster , tribute , greeks , biology , ancient history , art history , theology , classics , history , philosophy , buddhism

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