Mechanism of Human Immune Response against Microbial Infection: A Review

Ali M, Mu’azu L, Nas FS, Diso SU and Zage AU

Published on: 2024-06-06

Abstract

The immune system is a network of cells, tissues, and organs that work together to defend the body against attacks by “foreign” invaders. The immune system can be simplistically viewed as having two “lines of defense”: innate immunity and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity represents the first line of defense to an intruding pathogen. It is an antigen-independent (nonspecific) defense mechanism that is used by the host immediately or within hours of encountering an antigen. The immune system uses many mechanisms to combat infection by microbes and to avoid coincidental damage to self-tissues. These mechanisms work together, and the fully integrated immune response draws elements from many effector systems to tailor a response to the specific invading pathogen or toxic agent. Numerous cells are involved in the innate immune response such as phagocytes (macrophages and neutrophils), dendritic cells, mast cells, basophils, eosinophils, natural killer (NK) cells and innate lymphoid cells. Adaptive immune responses are the basis for effective immunization against infectious diseases. The cells of the adaptive immune system include: antigen-specific T cells, which are activated to proliferate through the action of APCs, and B cells which differentiate into plasma cells to produce antibodies. The paper reviewed the mechanism of human immune response against microbial infection.