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Other Sciences
Biology and Medical
The Role of Antibodies in the Immune System: A Closer Look
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[QUOTE="BillTre, post: 6342889, member: 581757"] The innate immune system is an evolved system that defends the body from a variety of long term and not fast changing threats. It may work on things like molecules that make up bacterial cell walls (most of these are slowly evolving). In the never ending arms race between hosts and pathogens, defense mechanisms that change only slowly can only provide limited benefits. This can be generally protective, but many pathogens will evolve evasions for static defenses. Rapidly reproducing organisms like bacterial (which can got through several generations in a day) can quickly evolve new traits, allowing them to evade innate defense systems. The antibody based adaptive immune system overcomes these limitations because it can defend the body by targeting molecules that it has not been exposed to before and even new molecules that people have only recently been created in labs. Antibodies, once bound to their antigen, slightly change their shape, in non-binding areas, as a result of binding. This provides a signal for other molecular interactions (other molecules binding the bound antibody molecule), such as triggering the complement cascade or binding by receptors on other cells (like macrophages). An antibody (or a bunch of antibodies), may bind something like a bacterial cell, but is probably not going to kill the bacteria by itself on the bacterial surface. However, it can trigger actions of other bodially defense systems (complement of engulfment and digestion by macrophages) to eliminate the bacteria. In all these complex interactions, antibody molecules bound to their antigens, provide direction to the activities of other immune system components that provide immune protection. [/QUOTE]
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The Role of Antibodies in the Immune System: A Closer Look
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