Can someone plese help me out with these? The explanations are so general and i feel like these are just things we should know, rather then obtain from the passage...
#110 in BS: Normally the immune system avoides attacking the tissues of its own body because:
A) special intracellular process recognizes only foreign antigens
B) the body does not make any antigens that the immune system could recognize
C) It changes its antibodies to be specific only to foreign antigens
D) it suppresses cells specific to the body's own antigens
---The answer is D but i chose A becuase it seemed kind of right to me. I just wasn't really sure on this because i couldnt really pick anything out of the passage to help me. Are we just supposed to know this stuff? Can someone help me out and go through each answer and explain why its WRONG?
#115 in BS: It was hypothesized that the decrease in blood flow to the skin reulsted from a change in the activity of the sympathetic nerves to the skin. Which supports this hypothesis?
The answer is A- a change in norep. content of blood draining from the skin. I understand why this could work, but i chose C- a lack of epinep. receptors in skin blood vessels. .....and now that i just typed that out, is C wrong becuase they were talking about norepinepherine and not epinepherine?? and if not...then why is C wrong?
Thanks a lot!
#110: lets focus on B cells to keep things simple (T cells have a different mechanism but the same result). The antigen specific method of B cells works because these cells essentially have a random aspect to the gene which produces antibodies, thus, the B cell can produce any of a multitude of different possible antibodies (with different light/heavy chains, etc.) Its entirely possible that some B cells would end up with antibodies that are sensitive to certain cells in our body, which i'll call body antigens. For this reason, all immune cells are matured in the thyroid. the thyroid essentially selects for cells which are insensitive to our body antigens. In the thyroid, cells which bind to our body antigens are killed off while those which are insensitive live on. With thus understanding, you can see that:
A is wrong, b/c its the development in the thryoid which kills off cells that recognize body antigens, not any intracellular activity. im guessing what they were getting at was the MHCI/II stuff, in which cells will essentially "chop up" certain peptide chains and "throw them up" to be analyzed by a T-cell. If the T-cell recognizes an antigen it becomes activated. Its entirely possible for a T-cell to become activated by body antigens in this way, however T-cells which would do this are killed off in the thyroid before they mature.
B is wrong, b/c the body does make antigens which could be recognized by the immune system, its just that the cells which recognize body antigens are killed off in the thyroid
C is wrong, b/c the antibodies are never changed, any given B cell produces only one type of antibody, period.
D is correct, it essentially summarizes the stuff going on in the thryoid which i mentioned above.
#115: the reason why C is wrong has nothing to do with the fact that its epinephrine vs. norep. notice what it says: a LACK of ep. receptors in skin blood vessels. if there is a lack of recepters, it means that the vessels are insensitive to epinephrine, which is a neurotransmitter which the symp. nervous system uses. how could the SNS innervate a tissue which is insensitive to its transmitter? Although it might use other means, such as Norep., one thing is for sure - the answer certainly doesnt SUPPORT the hypothesis, its either neutral or negative for the hypothesis.