Recent studies have radically changed our views of the development of acquired immunity during gestation and perinatal life. It is now apparent that there are considerable differences in the way the immune response matures in different species (Sterzl and Silverstein, 1967; Adinolfi and Wood, 1969; Solomon, 1971). In mice and rats immune reactions are relatively immature even in the newborn. In...

Impact of Alcohol Abuse on the Adaptive Immune System| 185 In the United States, alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the third-leading cause of preventable death. It is associated with increased susceptibility to bacterial pneumonia; viral infections, such as HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV); and increased postoperative morbidity and mortality. This increased susceptibility is mediated in part by func...

Adaptive immunity, a vertebrate specialization, adds memory and exquisite specificity to the basic innate immune responses present in invertebrates while conserving metabolic resources. In adaptive immunity, antigenic challenge requires extremely rapid proliferation of rare antigen-specific lymphocytes to produce large, clonally expanded effector populations that neutralize pathogens. Rapid pro...

A stochastic SIR epidemic dynamic model with distributed-time-delay, for a two-scale dynamic population is derived. The distributed time delay is the varying naturally acquired immunity period of the removal class of individuals who have recovered from the infection, and have acquired natural immunity to the disease. We investigate the stochastic asymptotic stability of the disease free equilib...

Recent studies have radically changed our views of the development of acquired immunity during gestation and perinatal life. It is now apparent that there are considerable differences in the way the immune response matures in different species (Sterzl and Silverstein, 1967; Adinolfi and Wood, 1969; Solomon, 1971). In mice and rats immune reactions are relatively immature even in the newborn. In...

Neutrophils have long been regarded as key effectors of the innate immune response during acute inflammation. Recent evidence has revealed a greater functional diversity for these cells than previously appreciated, expanding roles for neutrophils in adaptive immunity and chronic pathologies. In this review, we summarize some of the evolving paradigms in the neutrophil field and highlight key ad...

Since its discovery in 1993, the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase p38 has attracted much attention for its role in a wide range of cellular processes, many of which involve the immune system. Although p38 has been heavily implicated in the function of all type immune cells, research has tended focus on its role in innate immunity. In this review we attempt to highlight some of the major d...

Recently claims have been made for radical new insights in the field of invertebrate immunology that involve memory, specificity and/or maternal transfer of immunocompetence. For evidence these claims rely on phenomena, such as survival or reproductive capacity, observed at the level of the whole organism. The allure of these apparently revelatory hypotheses is that they are contrary to establi...

Most previous stress-immune research focused on the immunosuppressive effects of stress on acquired immunity. More recently, it has become clear that acute stressor exposure can potentiate innate, as well as suppress acquired, immunity. For example, acute stress improves recovery from bacterial inflammation, a classic in vivo measure of innate immunity. The previous work was done in sedentary o...

This paper considers the outcome of a formal sensitivity analysis on a series of epidemic model structures developed to study the population level effects of maternal antibodies. The analysis is used to compare the potential influence of maternally acquired immunity on various age and time domain observations of infection and serology, with and without seasonality. The results of the analysis i...