The word "immunology" cames from the word "imune" from the Latin, that
means someone that don't need to pay tax to the government (Romam
Empire), later was used for the Pope (not under mens laws) an to people
that were resistence to diseases, so to be immune means not to be sick.
(logus, from Greec, means study).
Based on the original description, any natural mechanism of resistance
to diseases or potencial pathogenic agents, can be described as a immune
reaction.
Metchinikoff, described the phagocytic theory, based on that
principles. So I prefer to think in immunology as a description more
open, so we do not exclude the 96% of the described species from
methazoarians (the invertebrates).
I think we have to take care about the antropocentric view from
the immune system, and the definition of immunology must be the same for
vertebrates and invertebrates animals.
On Wed, 27 Apr 1994 txpljfg at UABCVSR.cvsr.uab.edu wrote:
> I think that any definition of immunity with regard to invertebrates
> must contain the assumption that invertebrates may evolve structures
> that are evolutionarily analogous. That is, a component of the
> invertebrate immune response could consist of a completely unique
> family of molecules that accomplishes a similar objective such as the
> neutralization of a foreign protein. The American cockroach is a
> perfect example: Karp and collegues have demonstrated the presence of a
> humoral immune response that exhibits both memory and specificity
> towards soluble protein antigens, yet the response appears to be
> mediated by a molecule that belongs to a family of vitellogenins (*not*
> immunoglobulin). Similarly, a cellular response in the american
> cockroach exhibits at least short term memory, but the responses are
> mediated by cells that do not appear to have any relationship with
> lymphocytes.
>> The question raised is an important one because if one assumes that an
> immune response must me mediated *only* by lymphocytes etc., then the
> situation is untenable because many inverebrates do not have the
> physical structures for the generation of such cells. Yet, many
> invertebrates are long lived -- i.e. the American cockroach can live as
> long as two years (about the same as a mouse) and are therefore faced
> with some of the same environmental pressures as many mammalian
> species.
>>>>>>> ==============================================================================
> James F. George, Ph.D. "Back off man, I'm a scientist"
> Department of Surgery --Bill Murray
> University of Alabama at Birmingham
> 205-934-4261 voice
>txpljfg at uabcvsr.cvsr.uab.edu> ===============================================================================
>
