Sunday, January 6, 2013

Autobody Immune Response Animation

Wow. You can find the darndest things on YouTube.

For example, take a look at this 3D medical animation created by Nucleus Medical Media. It shows the body's normal antibody immune response.

Why is this of interest to sjoggies, you ask? Because in order to understand what is wrong with our immune system, first we must have a clear idea of what a healthy immune response to an invader -- or pathogen -- looks like. In this animation, it's clearly demonstrated that the Y-shaped antibodies are attacking the unwanted invader, followed by an awesome macrophage engulfing the pathogen and digesting it.

In autoimmune disease, some of our antibodies have been given the wrong task: instead of attacking pathogens, they attack healthy tissues, such as tear glands and salivary glands, and thus become autoantibodies.

Read this from the "about" tab:

     This 3D medical animation shows how antibodies stop harmful pathogens from attaching themselves to healthy cells in the blood stream. The animation begins by showing normal red and white blood cells flowing through the blood stream. Next, a single pathogen appears onscreen slowly moving toward its destination on the surface of a cell. The tubular extensions on the pathogen are surface proteins which attach to corresponding surface proteins on a white blood cell, or leukocyte. As the animation continues, more pathogens continue to attach to the white blood cell, rendering it ineffective.
     During the immune system response, Y-shaped antibodies begin attacking the pathogen, binding to its surface proteins as the pathogen attempts to anchor to the blood cell. The antibodies completely block the pathogen from attaching to the blood cell, "tagging" the pathogen so that one of the immune system's leaner cells, a macrophage, appears onscreen to engulf and digest the pathogen.



My favorite part is when the macrophage noms the nasty pathogen. Mmm. Tasty.

3 comments:

ShEiLa said...

That is very cool!

Hey Miss Julia...
have you ever tried a dry mouth product called OraMoist Dry Mouth Patches?

I have been suffering from dry mouth worse than my average. So I have an Rx for Pilocarpine and it helps I took it for a few days. My concern is the risk of the medication with my asthma. Even the Rx company called my doctor about it. He didn't seem overly concerned... and I understand the whole benefit out weighs the risk disclaimer... but my concern is making me uncomfortable about taking it.

Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

ToOdLeS.

Christine said...

Sheila~ I saw your comment. I was on pilocarpine and I also have asthma. My pulmonologist put me on an inhaler called Spiriva to counteract the effects of the pilocarpine of my bronchioles (lung). It worked well but I did have some issues when I went through a nasty asthma flare and I had to stop the pilocarpine for about a wk. which helped.

The pilocarpine stopped helping after a while so we stopped that and the inhaler. I have tried the OraMoist and they DO work but can leave nasty film and gunk up in your mouth. I am currently trying XyliMelts which work for a period of time.

ShEiLa said...

Thank you Christine! I really do appreciate the help.

ToOdLeS.

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