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If the ‘Adaptive’ Immune System Can Recognize a Significant Portion of the Pathogenic Universe to Which the ‘Innate’ Immune System is Blind, Then…
Author(s) -
Cohn M.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.934
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1365-3083
pISSN - 0300-9475
DOI - 10.1111/j.0300-9475.2004.01449.x
Subject(s) - innate immune system , immune system , repertoire , acquired immune system , biology , effector , immune recognition , immunology , physics , acoustics
The ‘adaptive’ immune repertoire functionally recognizes pathogens (and their toxic products) that the ‘innate’ defense system misses. This requires that the self–nonself discrimination and the regulation of effector output be dependent primarily on somatic learning mechanisms (i.e. on the somatically generated, large, random ‘adaptive’ immune paratopes repertoire).