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Manipulation of the immune response in parasitic infections
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
Extract
The following brief survey considers various manoeuvres which can be applied to manipulate the immune response to parasitic infections in vivo. The examples quoted largely concern malaria, babesiosis, schistosomiasis and leishmaniasis, predominantly in inbred mouse strains. Since my own relevant research experience has been restricted to leishmaniasis, this will receive undue emphasis, although it does illustrate particularly well points I wish to stress. The types of intervention described do not all provide the precision of interpretation with which they are sometimes credited. Thus, effects of immunosuppression or T-cell depletion alone can usually only implicate the specific immune response (in its broad sense) in shaping the natural history and outcome of an infection or in underlying the effect of prophylactic immunization. Nevertheless, more precise delineation of lymphocyte subset involvement can be obtained by cell replacement studies in some of these models or by exclusion of antibody. The outcomes of these approaches have been (or are) predictable in most cases. More fascinating, however, are the various instances which will be stressed where totally unpredicted and contrary observations have been made which led (or may lead) to fresh insight into the disease. These serendipitous findings illustrate at the same time the value of applying the manoeuvres, even though they imply that the logical immunologist cannot yet always outsmart the parasite by design.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Parasitology , Volume 88 , Issue 4: Symposia of the British Society for Parasitology Volume 21: Parasite evasion of the immune response , August 1984 , pp. 665 - 675
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984
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