How the Immune System Recognizes Self and Nonself

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XVIII

   PDF

2. Recognition of Pathogens: Toll-Like Receptors

   • Satoshi Uematsu, Shizuo Akira

   Pages 1-36

3. Strategies of Natural Killer (NK) Cell Recognition and Their Roles in Tumor Immunosurveillance

   • C. Andrew Stewart, Eric Vivier

   Pages 37-81

4. Recent Progress on Paired Immunoglobulin-Like Receptors

   • Hiromi Kubagawa, Ching-Cheng Chen, Ikuko Torii, Max D. Cooper, Kyoko Masuda, Yoshimoto Katsura et al.

   Pages 83-98

5. Self-nonself Recognition through B-Cell Antigen Receptor

   • Daisuke Kitamura

   Pages 99-132

6. How Do T Cells Discriminate Self from Nonself?

   • Catherine Mazza, Bernard Malissen

   Pages 133-171

7. Fc Receptors

   • Falk Nimmerjahn, Jeffrey V. Ravetch

   Pages 173-198

8. Self and Nonself Recognition by Coreceptors on B Lymphocytes: Regulation of B Lymphocytes by CD19, CD21, CD22, and CD72

   • Kozo Watanabe, Takeshi Tsubata

   Pages 199-220

9. Co-Receptors in the Positive and Negative Regulation of T-Cell Immunity

   • Helga Schneider, Christopher E. Rudd

   Pages 221-245

10. Back Matter

    Pages 247-251

    PDF

How do you discriminate yourself from other people? This question must sound odd to you since you easily recognize others at a glance and, without any effort, would not mistake them for yourself. However, it is not always easy for some people to discriminate themselves from others. For example, patients with schi- phrenia often talk with “others” living inside themselves. Thus it is likely that n- mally your brain actively recognizes and remembers the information belonging to yourself and discriminates it from the information provided by others, although you are not conscious of it. This brain function must have been particularly important for most animals to protect their lives from enemies and for species to survive through evolution. Similarly, higher organisms have also acquired their immune system through evolution that discriminates nonself pathogens and self-body to protect their lives from pathogens such as bacteria or viruses. The brain system may distinguish integrated images of self and nonself created from many inputs, such as vision, sound, smell, and others. The immune system recognizes and distinguishes a variety of structural features of self and nonself components. The latter actually include almost everything but self: for example, bacteria, viruses, toxins, pollens, chemicals, transplanted organs, and even tumor cells derived from self-tissue. To this end the immune system recruits different kinds of immune cells, such as B and T lymphocytes, natural killer (NK) cells, dendritic cells, and macrophages.

• Viruses
• autoimmune disease
• bacteria
• cell
• diseases
• immune system
• immunity
• immunoglobulin
• infection
• lymphocytes
• membrane
• protein
• regulation
• tissue
• tumors

• Department of Medicinal and Life Science, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Division of Molecular Biology, Research Institute for Biological Sciences, Tokyo University of Science, Chiba, Japan

  Daisuke Kitamura

Policies and ethics