What is Disorders of Immune System — Symptoms, Causes, Diseases, Example

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Immune Sys­tem

Allergies

Aller­gy is the Hyper­sen­si­tive­ness of a per­son to some for­eign sub­stance com­ing in con­tact with or enter­ing the body.

Aller­gens = The sub­stance that cause aller­gic reac­tion are called aller­gens. The com­mon aller­gens are dust, pollen, mould, spores, fab­rics , lip­sticks, nail paints, feath­ers, fur, plants, bac­te­ria, foods , heat, cold sunlight.

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Aller­gies

Symp­toms =

The Symp­toms that result from an aller­gy May be of dif­fer­ent kinds but most­ly it affects the skin and mucous membrane.

Symp­toms of aller­gic reac­tion include sneez­ing, watery eyes , run­ning nose and dif­fi­cul­ty in breathing.

Cause :-

Aller­gy involves main­ly IgE anti­bod­ies and chem­i­cals like his­t­a­mine and sero­tonin from mast cells and basophils.

The aller­gic ten­den­cy is genet­i­cal­ly passed from par­ent to child and is char­ac­terised by the pres­ence of large quan­ti­ties of Ig E anti­bod­ies in the blood 

These anti­bod­ies are called Sen­si­tiz­ing anti­bod­ies to dis­tin­guish them from the more com­mon IgG antibodies.

First expo­sure to anti­gen caus­es pri­ma­ry immune response , but it does­n’t cause allergy . 

When an aller­gen enters the body sec­ond time , it caus­es sec­ond immune response reac­tion and a sub­se­quent aller­gic reac­tions occurs. It caus­es marked dila­tion of all the periph­er­al blood ves­sels and the cap­il­lar­ies become high­ly per­me­able so that large amounts of flu­id leak out from the tis­sue. The blood pres­sure decrease drastically.

Some firm of aller­gy are men­tioned below 

(I) Hay Fever 

It is a form of aller­gy due to Pollen of grass­es, trees and oth­er plants. It is char­ac­terised by inflam­ma­tion of the mem­brane lin­ing the nose and some­times of the con­junc­ti­va. The Symp­toms of Sneez­ing, run­ning or blocked nose and water­ing eye due to his­t­a­mine releas­es often respond to the treat­ment with antihistamines.

(ii) Asth­ma :

The tis­sue sur­round­ing the bron­chi­oles of the lungs swell up and com­press the bron­chi­oles. Hence there is dif­fi­cul­ty in breath­ing. Admin­is­tra­tion of anti­his­t­a­mines has lit­tle effect on the course of asth­ma because his­t­a­mine does not appear tot be major fac­tor caus­ing the asth­mat­ic reaction.

Treat­ment is with bron­chodila­tors with or with­out cor­ti­cos­teroid, usu­al­ly admin­is­tered via aerosols or dry pow­der inhalers.

Avoid­ance of known aller­gens espe­cial­ly the house dust mite, aller­gens aris­ing from domes­tic pets and food addi­tives will help to reduce the fre­quen­cy of attacks as will dis­cour­age­ment of smoking.

(iii) Ana­phy­lax­is ( Ana­phy­lac­tic shocks).

It is an aller­gic reac­tion involv­ing all the tis­sue of the body occurs in a few min­utes after the injec­tion of anti­gen such as penicillin.Such a reac­tion is very seri­ous. His­t­a­mine released from rup­tured mast cells caus­es marked dila­tion of all the arter­ies so that a large amount of flu­id is passed from the blood to the tis­sue and the tis­sue and there is a dras­tic fall in blood pres­sure. The affect­ed per­son May become uncon­scious and the indi­vid­ual May die with­in a short time.

The use of drugs as anti­his­t­a­mines, adren­a­line and steroids quick­ly reduce the symp­toms of allergy.

Autoimmunity

The unique prop­er­ty of the immune sys­tem is that it always destroys the for­eign pro­teins but nev­er attacks the body own proteins.

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Autoim­mune Disease 

Def­i­n­i­tion

If the immune sys­tem fails to rec­og­nize ‘Self’ From ‘noself’ and starts destroy­ing the body’s own pro­teins, this leads to some mal­func­tions which are called autoim­mune dis­ease. This immu­ni­ty is known as autoimmunity.

Cause :-

Autoim­mu­ni­ty is caused due to following,

Genet­ic Factors.

Some indi­vid­ual are genet­i­cal­ly more sus­cep­ti­ble to devel­op­ing autoim­mune dis­eases than oth­ers. This most­ly hap­pens when cer­tain genes start show­ing abnor­mal­i­ties. These genes could be those of anti­bod­ies, T cells recep­tors and MHC genes (major his­to­com­pat­i­bil­i­ty com­plex genes). Autoim­mune dis­or­ders occur more in women than in men. Autoim­mu­ni­ty seems to run un some families.

Envi­ro­men­tal Factors :

Envi­ron­men­tal also plays some role in the induc­tion of autoim­mune dis­eases. Besides autoim­mune dis­ease can be man­i­fest­ed because of cer­tain part of the immune sys­tem, which get ele­vat­ed in almost all autoim­mune disorder.

Increased helper T cell and decreased sup­pres­sor T cell func­tions have been sug­gest­ed as caus­es of autoim­mu­ni­ty. Autoim­mune dis­ease are caused by self react­ing antibodies.

Example — Some Important examples of autoimmune diseases are given below

  1. Addi­sion’s Disease
  2. Dia­betes Mel­li­tus (type 1)
  3. Graves’ Dis­ease
  4. Autoim­mune Hemolyt­ic anaemia
  5. Hashimo­to’s Thyroiditis
  6. Mul­ti­ple Sclerosis
  7. Myas­the­nia Gravis
  8. Rheumat­ic fever
  9. Rheuma­toid Arthritis
  10. Sys­temic lupus ery­the­mato­sus (SLE)

Pos­si­ble Treatments 

To con­trol dif­fer­ent types of autoim­mune dis­eases , con­tin­u­ous attempts are being made to devel­op new­er and advanced treat­ment options

(I) Use of Immuno­su­pres­sants = Immuno­sup­pres­sive drugs (eg — cor­ti­cos­te­ri­ods, aza­thio­prine and Cyclophos­phamide) are often giv­en to reduce the sever­i­ty of the autoim­mune dis­or­ders . but as this treat­ment sup­press the over­all immune response , the patients are at great risk of hav­ing can­cer and oth­er diseases.

(ii) Plasma­phere­sis = In this line of treat­ment the plas­ma is first sep­a­rat­ed from the patien­t’s blood by cen­trifu­ga­tion . After remov­ing the reac­tive autoan­ti­bod­ies from plas­ma , the blood is trans­fused back to the patient .

(iii) T Cell Vac­ci­na­tion = Vac­ci­na­tion using T cell can be effec­tive means of treat­ing autoim­mune disease.

(iv) Use of Mon­o­clon­al Anti­bod­ies = Mon­o­clon­al anti­bod­ies have been suc­cess­ful used in the treat­ment of autoim­mune diseases.

(v) Use of Stem cells — Adult hematopoi­et­ic stem cell trans­plan­ta­tion can be done.

Immunodeficiency Disease

Immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy dis­ease are con­di­tions where the defence mech­a­nisms of the body are week­end , lead­ing to repeat­ed micro­bial infections.

Types —

Immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy dis­ease May be pri­ma­ry or secondary

(I) pri­ma­ry Immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy Disease — 

These dis­ease exist from the birth. A per­son May be with­out B cells or T cells or both from the birth. 

Exam­ple — Severe Com­bined immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy Dis­ease (SCID)

(ii) Sec­ondary Immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy Disease

A vari­ety of fac­tors such as mal­nu­tri­tion, infec­tions , meta­bol­ic dis­or­ders , malig­nan­cy and cyto­tox­ic drugs May lead to defects in spe­cif­ic and non spe­cif­ic immunity. 

Thus Sec­ondary immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy dis­ease are more com­mon than pri­ma­ry defi­cien­cy disease .

Exam­ples — AIDS and Hodgk­in’s dis­ease (a malig­nant dis­ease of lym­phat­ic tis­sue — a form of Lymphoma)

SCID — Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease

The per­son who is suf­fer­ing from SCID lacks both B cell and T Cell from birth. It is a seri­ous genet­ic dis­ease in which the per­son is high­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to infection.

AIDS — Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

AIDS is a dis­or­der of cell medi­at­ed immune sys­tem of the body. There is a reduc­tion in the num­ber of helper T cells which stim­u­late anti­body pro­duc­tion by B cells. This results in the loss of nat­ur­al defence against viral infection.

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HIV-AIDS

Dis­cov­ery

AIDS was first notice in USA among homosapi­ens. AIDS virus was dis­cov­ered by Luck Mon­tag­nier and Col­leagues at the insti­tute pas­teur, paris in 1983. It was named lym­phadenopa­thy asso­ci­at­ed virus (LAV)

Pathogen (causative Agent )

The virus was iden­ti­fied and named by Amer­i­cans as HCLV lll (human cell leukemia virus. lll) but stat­ed ear­li­er the name of. The virus wad changed to HIV (human immun­od­e­fi­cien­cy Virus)

Trans­mis­sion

Virus of AIDS is trans­mit­ted via blood and semen 

  1. Trans­fu­sion of infect­ed blood or blood products
  2. Use of Con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed nee­dles and Syringes to inject drugs and vaccine
  3. Use of Con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed razors
  4. Use of Con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed nee­dles for bor­ing pinnae
  5. Sex­u­al inter­course with an infect­ed part­ners with­out a condom 
  6. From infect­ed moth­er to child through placenta
  7. Arti­fi­cial insemination
  8. Organ Trans­plant

Incu­ba­tion Period

The incu­ba­tion peri­od of AIDS ranges between 6 months to 10 years

Symp­toms

The symp­toms of HIV infec­tion include fever, lethar­gy , pharyn­gi­tis, nau­sea , Headache, rash­es etc

Diag­no­sis

  1. AIDS can be diag­nosed by ELISA test and West­ern blot­ting test.
  2. West­ern blot­ting test is employed for Con­fir­ma­tion of ELISA pos­i­tive cases.

Prevention : No vaccine has been prepared so far against AIDS virus. The following steps May help in preventing AIDS

  1. Peo­ple should be edu­cat­ed about AIDS. Every year , Decem­ber 1 is recalled as the World AIDS Day. It is one of the method to edu­cate the peo­ple about AIDS.
  2. Blood test must be done in blood donors, donors of semen, donors of organs (kidne , lung, liv­er ) , patients under­go­ing haemodial­y­sis and preg­nant women.
  3. Dis­pos­able nee­dle and syringes should be used. Used nee­dles and syringes must be destroyed
  4. In sex­u­al rela­tion­ship one should be monogamous
  5. Den­tist should use ster­il­ized equipment
  6. Avoid tat­toos, ear and nose pierc­ing from unqual­i­fied people
  7. Avoid use of com­mon blades in bar­ber’s shops.

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