Innate immune system cellular components

The immune system is divided into two defense mechanisms nonspecific, or innate, and specific, or adaptive, mechanisms that recognize and respond to foreign substances. Some of the important cellular components of nonspecific and specific immunity are described in Table 15.4. The nonspecific immune system is the first line of defense against infectious organisms. Its cellular components are the... 

These diverse cellular constituents of the immune system provide protection and repair within the body by two principal components the innate and the adaptive immune systems. Erom a functional perspective, these two immunological systems are crucial to the process of future drug design. 

The response to viral infection involves cellular and cytokine components of the host innate and adaptive immune system. However, viruses have developed protean means of subverting the host immune response. This has been an explosive area of research that has revealed striking examples of the diverse strategies CMV has evolved to counteract host immunity. The MHC is the ultimate interface between virus and adaptive immunity. CDS" and CD4 T lymphocytes recognize peptides derived from viral proteins presented in the context of MHC class I and class II molecules, respectively (Doherty 1995). This recognition triggers the cell-mediated immune system armamentarium whereby virus-specific T lymphocyte clones proliferate and mediate cytolysis of virally infected cells and/or release cytokines that inhibit viral replication or recruit T cells and monocytes to amplify the antiviral response. 

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