Definition
The immune system provides powerful defense mechanisms against infective or toxic agents. Its hallwork is the high specificity with which harmful noxes can be recognized and discriminated. Although usually prevented, the immune system sometimes can react against components of the own body resulting in a great variety of disorders, the autoimmune diseases.
Basic Mechanisms
To survive in an environment which contains a plethora of life threatening infectious agents and other harmful noxes, higher organisms have developed special defense mechanisms contained in the immune system (→ immune defense). In vertebrates, it is based on two arms. The phylogenetically older part (which can be traced back to unicellular organsims) in human beings is represented by the phagocytic leukocytes such as the monocytes/macrophages and the various granulocytes. These cells possess a restricted number of receptors, including the Toll like receptors, which recognize structural patterns common in...
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References
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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York
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Resch, K. (2008). Autoimmune Disease. In: Offermanns, S., Rosenthal, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Molecular Pharmacology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-38918-7_259
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-38918-7_259
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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