BIO 205

Chapter 21
Immunity and Serology
 Immunity to Disease

•Acquired Immunity Can Result by Actively Producing

Antibodies to an Antigen

•Active immunity occurs when the body’s immune

system responds to antigens by producing antibodies
and lymphocytes

•Naturally acquired active immunity follows illness or

pathogen exposure
Artificially acquired active immunity occurs through
vaccination

Vaccines contain treated or altered microbes, toxins,

or parts of microbes

•a primary immune response occurs

•memory cells are formed
•the person does not usually become ill
 There Are Several Types of Vaccine Strategies

1. Live, attenuated vaccines contain weakened

microbes that multiply at only low levels, inducing a
strong immune response.

• Organisms can revert to a virulent form and cause

disease

• A single-dose vaccine can combine vaccines for

different diseases

• Vaccines using attenuated bacteria are difficult and

not widely used
2. Inactivated vaccines contain killed pathogens, which
induce a weaker immune response

• Booster shots are required to maintain immunity

• They are safer than attenuated vaccines because

they cannot cause disease

3. Toxoid vaccines contain inactivated toxins (toxoids)

• Since the product is inactivated, booster shots are

required
4. Subunit vaccines contain only those parts of the
antigens that stimulate a strong immune response

• Recombinant DNA technology can be used to

create recombinant subunit vaccines

• Subunits cannot cause disease

5. Conjugate vaccines are created by attaching bacterial

capsule polysaccharides to a toxoid

• They elicit a strong immune response

6. DNA vaccines depend on the ability of some cells to:

• take up and translate foreign DNA

• display the resulting proteins, inducing a strong
immune response

Naked DNA vaccines contain engineered plasmids that

contain a gene from a pathogen

They are not infective or replicative, so cannot cause disease

7. Recombinant vector vaccines involve DNA incorporated

into an attenuated pathogen

The pathogen:

1. takes the DNA into the cells (viral vector) or

2. incorporates the DNA and present antigens (bacterial
vector)
Childhood and Adolescent Immunization Schedule - 2006
Acquired Immunity Also Can Result by Passively Receiving
Antibodies to an Antigen

•Naturally acquired passive immunity (congenital immunity)

occurs when antibodies pass from mother to fetus

•Maternal IgG antibodies remain in the child 3-6 months

after birth

•Maternal antibodies also pass to the newborn through:

•first milk (colostrum)

•breast milk
Artificially acquired passive immunity involves injection of
antibody-rich serum into a body

The serum can be used to:

•prevent disease (prophylactic)

•treat disease (therapeutic serum)

The immune system may recognize foreign serum proteins

as “nonself” and mount an allergic reaction

Immune complexes may form and serum sickness may

develop
Herd Immunity Results from Effective Vaccination Programs

•In herd immunity, the majority of a population are immune

•Unvaccinated individuals are unlikely to contact an infected individual

•Herd immunity is affected by:

1. population density
2. the strength of a person’s immune system
Do Vaccines Have Dangerous
Side Effects?

Adverse reactions to
vaccines are reported to the
Vaccine Adverse Events
Reporting System (VAERS)

People with egg allergies

should not take flu
vaccinations

The risk of contracting a

disease is much greater
than any risk associated
with vaccines
Serological Reactions
Neutralization Involves Antigen-Antibody Reactions

Neutralization is used to identify toxins and antitoxins,

viruses and viral antibodies

If a specific agent is suspected, to determine if the toxin

has been neutralized, a sample can be:

•mixed with an antitoxin

•injected into a lab animal

The Schick test is used to determine if a person is immune

to diphtheria
Agglutination Involves the Clumping of Antigens

A visible reaction requires less antibody or antigen if they

are clumped together

In passive agglutination:

•antigens are adsorbed onto a surface

•antibodies are added
•agglutination is observed
Hemagglutination is used to:

•determine blood type

•detect viruses that cause agglutination of red blood cells
Complement Fixation Can Detect Antibodies to a Variety of
Pathogens
•Monoclonal Antibodies Are
Becoming a “Magic Bullet”
in Biomedicine

•Polyclonal antibodies occur

because there are multiple
epitopes on a pathogen

•They activate different B

cell populations
End of Chapter 21