Mecanismos de la respuesta inmune innata... la primera línea de defensa

The twentieth century literature referred to the innate immune response as “unspecific”. Nevertheless, since the 1980s, the set of receptors that this kind of immune response cells –considered as the first line of defense– employ to directly recognize conserved molecules within a class of microbes, has been gradually described. This trait has turned the innate immune response highly specific when it comes to the recognition of microorganisms, but without reaching the high precision level of the adaptive immune response. This chapter describes the surveillance and prevention strategies, as well as the cellular and humoral mechanisms that the immune system immediately triggers against the first attempted aggression of an invading agent.