Humoral immunity

Prion infectious diseases: History and molecular pathology It is circa 500 BC, and Hippocrates records rare but localised outbreaks of madness within livestock; he observes that the animals’ neurological capabilities rapidly decline after years of apparent normality. When he investigates, he finds that the brains of these animals are ‘very full of dropsy and of an evil odour’. He hypothesises that this disease would be able to spread and infect humans too (McAlister, 2005). To him, this is…

an autoimmune disorder that causes chronic inflammation of connective tissues, with multifactorial pathophysiology and heterogeneous clinical manifestations. The autoimmunity is conferred by dysregulation of aspects from both innate and adaptive immunity, which leads to the production of autoantibodies. In SLE the most implicated autoantibodies are those…