The Immune System: Glossary
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The Immune System: overview
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Antibodies (immunoglobulins, IG): proteins, expressed at the surface of a B cell or secreted by a plasma cell, which specifically bind to an antigen. When a soluble (circulating) antibody attaches to an antigen, it helps the body to destroy or inactivate that antigen.
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Antigen: a substance or molecule against which the immune system acts. The antigen can be from foreign material such as bacteria or viruses or from self material.
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B cells: small white blood cells crucial to the immune defenses. Also known as B lymphocytes they come from the bone marrow and develop into blood cells called plasma cells which are the source of circulating antibodies.
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B cell epitope: part of the native structure of the antigen which is specifically recognized by an antibody.
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CTL epitope: cytotoxic T cell epitope.
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Cytotoxic T cell: a subset of T cells that carry a specific marker (CD8) and can destroy body cells infected by viruses or transformed by cancer.
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Epitope: part of the antigen which is specifically recognized by an antibody (B cell epitope) or by a T cell receptor (T cell epitope).
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Haplotypes: combinaison of linked alleles.
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Helper T cells: a subset of T cells that carry the CD4 protein and increase immune responses by the secretion of specialized factors, the cytokines, that activate other white blood cells to fight off infection.
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HLA: human leukocyte antigens or human MHC.
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Lymphocytes: T, B, NK and NKT cells.
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Major histocompatibility complex (MHC): proteins whose major function is to present to the T cells peptides resulting from the fragmentation, or processing, of antigenic proteins.
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Proteasome: complex of proteases whose function is to fragment proteins into peptides.
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TAP: transporter associated with antigen processing.
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T cells: small white blood cells (also known as T Lymphocytes), comprise functional subsets: helper T cells (Th) , cytotoxic T cells (Tc) and Natural Killer T cells (NKT).
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T cell epitope: part of the peptide (processed antigen) which is specifically recognized by a T cell receptor.
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TR: T cell receptors, proteins expressed at the surface of T cells, that specifically recognize and bind a specific antigen presented by the MHC proteins and the CD1 MHC-like proteins.