Immune system primitive

Restriction enzymes function like a primitive immune system. Bacteria use these enzymes to cut DNA from foreign sources, like the viruses that infect them (called bacteriophage). The cut DNA can t be used to... 

MBPs have been proposed to act as a primitive complement-dependent arm of the immune system [32]. A functional role has been shown in the clearance of yeast [33], complement fixation of bacteria [34], and the blocking of viral infectivity (human immunodeficiency and influenza viruses) [35,36]. Two serine proteases (MASP-1 and MASP-2) have been shown to be associated with the MBP receptor and are required for complement activation by MBP [37]. A recent... 

An example of a so-called primitive immune system, somewhat parallel to that in animals, is provided by the finding by Nelson et al. (29) that two proteinase inhibitors accumulate in leaves of tomato plants when attacked by chewing insects or mechanically wounded. The accumulation of the two antinutrient proteins is apparently a defense response and is initiated by the release of a putative wound hormone called the proteinase inhibitor inducing... 

Over millions of years of evolution, organisms have developed immune systems. The human immune system has evolved from a primitive state to a highly sophisticated, very complex, efficient, interrelated host-defense system. Immunological thinking was and still is considerably influenced by the phenomenon of protective immunity to infections. This feature was already well known to the ancient Greeks and has been impressively described by Thucydides in his report on the casualties during the Peloponnesian war (431-106 B.C.). 

Rajnik M. Primitive vertebrate immunity What is the evolutionary derivation of molecules that define the adaptive immune system Marsh J, Goode JA, eds. Antimicrobial Peptides, Ciba Foundation Symposium 186. Chichester, England John Wiley and Sons, 1994 224-236. 

Once the copper has been gained, it is put to multiple uses. Wherever ROS are used as weapons to help or hinder infection, a copper or iron ion is somewhere behind the scenes. Primitive immune systems in insects and crabs have a version of polyphenol oxidase called prophenoloxidase that defends against infection. Humans have immune cells called macrophages that use copper to build up a lot of ROS inside a special box. When you are infected, macrophages open up that box and lob the ROS at offensive bacteria, sometimes with a few dangerous plus-one copper ions in the mix. Your immune artillery is copper-clad. 

Primitive Immune systems in insects and crabs. .. L. Cerenius and K. Sdderhall. The prophenoloxidase-activating system in Invertebrates. 2004. Immunol Rev. 198, p. 116. 

---