Immune system

Main article: Human body

Immunodiagnostics

Main article: Immunodiagnostics

Intestines

Main article: Intestines

The gut is our main immune system, not the second, as they say, but the most important.

First, because it contains more immune cells than the rest of the organs that make up this system, such as the thymus or spleen.

Secondly, in the intestines there is the closest contact with what we eat and what we meet in the environment, including bacteria.

The role of the appendix

You can explain the presence of an appendix, as well as prove the importance of this organ. The appendix participates in the immune defense of the body, because in essence it is a conglomerate of lymphoid nodes, that is, it is part of the directly peripheral link of the immune system.

In addition, it is a reservoir for the reproduction of bacteria useful for our body (which are involved in the digestion of breast milk and digestion in general, help us to produce some vitamins).

1961

Soviet surgeon Leonid Rogozov operates on himself in Antarctica. He performed appendectomy surgery - removed his appendix. 1961

How Antibiotics Reduce Immunity

Human health is directly related to the immune system. Immunity is a combination of the body's reactions to various pathogens - genetically foreign objects. They can be bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, as well as body cells that have died or mutated, for example, into cancer cells. Decreased immunity, or immunodeficiency - a group of pathological conditions in which the immune system does not work properly. This leads to exacerbation of chronic infections or to the transition of acute infectious diseases into a chronic form, which forms secondary immune failure (VIN).

The reason for the decrease in immunity is the deterioration of the environment, irrational nutrition, stress, psychoemotional loads, as well as uncontrolled use of antibiotics, which affects the microflora of the body, which is part of the immune system. Because of the widespread spread, antibiotics become less effective and pathogens become more resistant to them.

Lymphoma - a malignant tumor from cells of the immune system

Lymphoma is a malignant tumor from cells of the immune system that affects the lymphatic system (lymph nodes, thymus gland, bone marrow). Lymphoma is not one disease, but a group of more than 30 different diseases.

Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (HIAs)

Main article: Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (HIAs)

Chronicle

2024: Discovery of Russian scientists may affect treatment of cancer, autoimmune and other diseases

Scientists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have made a discovery that can affect the treatment of cancer, autoimmune and other diseases. They proved that the interleukin-6 (IL-6) molecule, which plays a key role in the human immune system, can pair together to form so-called dimers. This leads to complex effects - IL-6 can both suppress and increase inflammation. The work was published in the scientific journal Structure. MIPT announced this on December 2, 2024.

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a molecule that has a variety of effects on the immune system. In the past few years, he has attracted great attention from scientists due to his participation in the "cytokine storm" - the reaction of the immune system, which leads to the death of many cases of COVID-19. The ability of interleukin-6 molecules to pair together (dimers) and thus participate in the development of cancer, scientists first suggested more than 20 years ago. Researchers at MIPT and their colleagues were able to prove the existence of such dimers and describe their unusual properties.

Human protection from pathogens is carried out by complex immunity systems. They involve signaling molecules that provide an adequate immune response and actively interact with each other. These include interleukins, which produce mainly white blood cells - white blood bodies. One of them is interleukin-6. In addition to acute inflammatory reactions, it is involved in hematopoiesis, autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and other processes. Typically, interleukin-6 works as individual molecules, i.e. monomers. However, back in 2001, scientists suggested that it could assemble into dimers in the development of chronic lymphocytic leukemia affecting B cells. The importance of the problem was shown, but the existence of the dimers themselves was then indicated only by indirect data. 

Scientists from MIPT together with colleagues from St. Petersburg, Dubna and Togliatti decided to turn to this issue again and successfully solved it. They found out that interleukin-6 dimers are formed through a process known as "domain exchange." This means that the two IL-6 molecules can integrate into each other to form a stable structure that exists in solution, not just in complex with the stabilizing antibody.

This finding has important implications: Interleukin-6 dimers and monomers have different biological properties. Dimers can block the action of monomers, which leads to complex effects - IL-6 can both increase and suppress inflammation. Understanding these mechanisms will help develop new therapies that will target specific forms of interleukin-6, which in turn will improve therapy for a variety of diseases.

The researchers also noted that they were able to detect IL-6 dimers in data published by other scientists. The authors of the original work considered that they were dealing with a common monomer protein, since interleukin-6 dimers have an unusual structure. Another important finding is to limit the ability of algorithms to predict the structure of a protein based on its amino acid sequence.

I am very inspired by our article for several reasons at once. First of all, because we came to a completely unexpected conclusion. This would not have happened if not for the utmost attentiveness of Sergei Bukhdruker, who decoded the diffraction data. At that time he was a student, and when Sergey showed his model of structure, more experienced colleagues did not believe him. But he managed to insist on his own and prove his own case, - shared the first author of the article Anna Yudenko, an employee of the Center for Research on Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-Related Diseases of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

 The authors used AlphaFold, which is known for high accuracy and has just earned its creators a Nobel Prize. However, in this case, using different versions of the program and its settings, all 1500 predicted structures turned out to be unlike the one described experimentally. This means that existing methods for predicting the structure of proteins may be limited, and in this case even high-precision algorithms have failed to accurately predict the shape of the dimer.

2021: Announcement of a platform working as an MRI scan for the immune system

At the end of February 2021, startup Ozette founded in 2020, received $6 million in seed funding from Madrona Venture Group AI and the Allen Institute. Ozette created platform immune monitoring based on technology developed by Fred Hutchinson. It will allow you to extract the necessary information from the array of data on individual cells and thereby optimize treatment and improve disease outcomes. More. here