Immune System:
The body's complicated natural defense against disruption caused by invading microbes and cancers. There are two aspects of the immune system's response to disease: innate and acquired. The innate part of the response is mobilized very quickly in response to infection and does not depend on recognizing specific proteins or antigens (see) foreign to an individual's normal tissue. It includes complement, macrophages, dendritic cells and granulocytes. The acquired, or learned, immune response arises when dendritic cells and macrophages present pieces of antigen to lymphocytes, which are genetically programmed to recognize very specific amino acid sequences. The ultimate result is the creation of cloned populations of antibody-producing B-cells and cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (see) primed to respond to a unique pathogen.
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