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5 Major functions of the
Immune System
Technical Info
Biological Products And Disease Prevention
By
Susan L. Valentino, Ph.D.
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HISTORY
From the earliest days of medical knowledge, all information pertaining to
drugs and their use in Western culture was designated "materia medica"
(literally, medical matter). The most famous commentary on drugs, was written by
Dioscorides in the first century AD, and covered more than 600 plant drugs and a
number of animal and mineral products.
Slowly, as the amount of knowledge increased, two disciplines emerged. By the
early 19th century pharmacology (the actions of drugs) and pharmacognosy (all
aspects of drugs with less emphasis on actions) had been established as the
first medical fields.
Later in the 19th century, chemists began to synthesize large numbers of organic compounds, some of which had useful therapeutic qualities. Because these products were synthetic, they fell under the discipline of medical chemistry. Thus, there came to be three disciplines devoted to drugs: pharmacology (drug actions), pharmacognosy (biological materials intended for therapeutic use) and medical chemistry (the science of synthetic drugs intended for therapeutic use).
In the
mid-twentieth century, pharmacognosy and medical chemistry began to merge. At
this point, in spite of the continued utilization of a large number of drugs
from biological sources, both teaching and research efforts concentrated on
synthetic drugs.
BIOTECHNOLOGY
Biotechnology is the use of biological materials for the production of
useful products. This includes but is not limited to: wine, beer, cheese making,
and fermentations that produce antibiotics.
The Immune System is the Only Line of Defense
It is a simple truth that all disease results from some sort of immune system
failure.
IMMUNOMODULATORS
Immunomodulators, also known as biological response modifiers (BRM's) are
substances that modify the immune response. The BRM's produced in the body
include: interleukins, interferons, colony-stimulating factors.
There is evidence that biological products from food and other sources enhance
the action of BRM's produced by the immune system. These compounds fight cancer,
arthritis, cholesterol imbalance, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, high blood
pressure, glaucoma, stroke, hepatitis, epilepsy, Chron's disease, multiple
sclerosis and infectious disease.
INFECTIOUS DISEASE
Vaccines
Vaccines are used to stimulate the production of antibodies, they can be
directed against viruses or bacteria. There are several different types of
vaccines: some are the actual infectious organism weakened, some are the whole
organism killed, some are organisms related to the infectious one but not
themselves infectious, some are just parts of the infectious organism, some are
genetically engineered infectious organisms, and some are completely synthetic.
Viral Vaccines
Most viral vaccines contain living or weakened virus. Some of these include:
mumps, rubella, measles, hepatitis, small pox, yellow fever, rabies, flu, and
polio.
Bacterial Vaccines
Most bacterial vaccines contain weakened or killed bacteria. Some of these
include: typhoid, cholera, plague, pertussis, tuberculosis, bacterial
meningitis, pneumonia, and diptheria.
Anthrax
Anthrax is produced by the bacteria Bacillus anthracis. A tough protective
coat allows the bacteria to survive for decades as spores. It is an infectious
bacterial disease spread by contact with infected animals, handling infected
products, eating infected meat, or breathing weapon-dispersed anthrax spores.
The Anthrax vaccine, like all vaccines helps the immune system prevent the
Anthrax bacteria (as spores) from growing, getting a foothold and producing
toxins that cause illness and death.
Anthrax is dangerous because, it is:
Three types of Anthrax infection:
Immune
Involvement:
The Anthrax vaccine helps the immune system, in a specific way, prevent the
Anthrax bacteria (as spores) from growing, getting a foothold and producing
toxins that cause illness and death. However, it is the immune system not the
vaccine that fights the infection. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that
anything that enhances immune function in an appropriate manner would help ward
off disease. There have always been people throughout history, "immune" to
deadly disease (without vaccination), more responsive to immunization, or
completely non-responsive to immunization, this is the result of differences in
immune status of individuals.
Data Sources:
Chin J, ed.
Control of Communicable Diseases Manual, 17th ed. Washington, DC: American
Public Health Association 2000
Brachman PS, Friedlander AM. Anthrax. In: Plotkin SA, Orenstein WA, ed.
Vaccines, 3rd ed. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1999 (not available online)
Inglesby TV, Henderson DA, Bartlett JG, Ascher MS, Eitzen E, Friedlander AM,
Hauer J, McDade J, Osterholm MT, O'Toole T, Parker G, Perl TM, PK, Tonat K,
Working Group on Civilian Biodefense. Anthrax as a biological weapon: Medical
and public health management. Journal of the American Medical Association
1999;281:1735-45
Beta
1, 3-D Glucan Enhances White Blood Cell Recovery Post Radiation
Discovery of Mechanism of Action Outlined in Hematology Journal
November 8, 2005 – Researchers have discovered the mechanism by which an orally dosed whole glucan particulate, a patented yeast beta 1,3/1,6 glucan, enhances the recovery of white blood cells following bone marrow injury from radiation, according to results published recently in Blood, a journal of The American Society of Hematology.
Earlier preclinical research has demonstrated that yeast beta glucan enhanced the production of white blood cells – a process known as hematopoiesis – following radiation exposure and reduced infectious complications of myelosuppression.
The current research published in Blood confirms these findings and identifies how Beta 1, 3-D glucan works in the body on a cellular and molecular level. The findings support the potential for developing therapies for cancer patients undergoing radiation or chemotherapy, as well as protecting military personnel and civilians from “dirty bombs” or nuclear accidents.
“Understanding how orally dosed yeast whole glucan particulate enhances hematopoietic recovery is an important step towards maximizing its efficacy for pharmaceutical use,” said Jun Yan, M.D., Ph.D., corresponding author of this paper and an assistant professor in the Tumor Immunobiology Program, James Graham Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville. “Beta 1, 3-D glucan plays a novel role in priming certain stem cells to injured bone marrow and promoting leukocyte recovery.”
The paper, “Beta-glucan enhances complement-mediated hematopoietic recovery after bone marrow injury” (Blood. 2005 Sep 22), examined the role of complement, a soluble blood protein, and complement receptor 3 (CR3) in bone marrow injury and repair. CR3 positive stem cells (hematopoietic progenitor cells) move to the site of injury, bind to injured bone marrow stromal cells via iC3b-CR3 axis and mature into new blood cells. Beta 1, 3-D glucan enhances the proliferation of tethered stem cells, promoting white blood cell recovery. After 12 days, mice exposed to a sublethal dose of radiation and treated with beta glucan had approximately 40% more cell formation units in the spleen than did untreated mice.
The acceleration of leukocyte recovery following radiation could potentially prevent significant morbidity and mortality as a result of opportunistic infections in the immune-weakened mice, the paper reported.
The orally dosed whole glucan particulate also significantly enhanced the survival of animals receiving a lethal dose of radiation after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Forty days following irradiation, approximately 30% of mice treated with Beta 1, 3-D glucan survived compared with only 3% of the untreated animals.
Researchers are exploring further the signaling pathway of stem cells after yeast derived beta-glucan stimulation.
Funding for the study came from the National Institute of Health, the U.S. Army Breast Cancer Research Program, the Kentucky Lung Cancer Research Board and Biothera.
Submitted
July 7, 2005
Accepted September 14, 2005
Beta-glucan
enhances complement-mediated hematopoietic recovery after bone marrow injury
Daniel E Cramer, Daniel J Allendorf, Jarek T Baran, Richard Hansen, Jose Marroquin, Bing Li, Janina Ratajczak, Mariusz Z Ratajczak, and Jun Yan*
Tumor Immunobiology Program and Stem Cell Biology Program, James Graham Brown Cancer Center, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA
* Corresponding author; email: jun.yan@louisville.edu .
Myelotoxic injury in the bone marrow (BM) as a consequence of total body irradiation (TBI) or granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) mobilization results in the deposition of iC3b on BM stroma (stroma-iC3b). In the present study, we have examined how stroma-iC3b interacts with hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPC) and the role of complement (C) and complement receptor 3 (CR3) in BM injury/repair. We demonstrate here that stroma-iC3b tethers HPC via the inserted (I)-domain of HPC complement receptor 3 (CR3, CD11b/CD18, Mac-1). Following irradiation, stroma-iC3b was observed in the presence of purified IgM and normal mouse serum (NMS), but not serum from Rag-2-/- mice, implicating a role for antibody (Ab) and the classical pathway of C activation. Furthermore, a novel role for soluble yeast -glucan, a ligand for the CR3 lectin-like domain (LLD), in the priming of CR3+ HPC is suggested. Soluble yeast -glucan could enhance the proliferation of tethered HPC, promote leukocyte recovery following sub-lethal irradiation, and increase the survival of lethally-irradiated animals following allogeneic HPC transplantation in a CR3-dependent manner. Taken together, these observations suggest a novel role for C, CR3, and -glucan in the restoration of hematopoiesis following injury.
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