Question on memory T cells;
I understand that memory T cells are formed similar to memory B cells (after T cells are exposed to an antigen). Which T cells form the memory T cells?
It probably wouldn't be the suppressor T cells that form memory T cells right?
It must be either Helper T cells or Cytotoxic T cells or both but Im unsure which.
I'm not really good at immune stuff, but I'll give it a shot.
1) Innate vs. Adaptive.
Innate=kills anything that looks funky=not specific to a particular pathogen/antigen (quick)
Adaptive=specific=targets certain antigens/pathogens
2) Cell-Mediated Immunity vs. Humoral Response
Humoral Response (B-lymphocytes=WBC from the bone marrow)
Our body has crap ton of B-cells with different variable regions on their membrane-bound antibodies. Let's say you get infected by VirusA. Eventually, one of these B-cells will latch onto the epitope of the virus(or we can now call antigen) and the B-cells will become activated, which will make them replicate very fast either into memory cells (stick around a long time with the perfect variable region to that epitope) or into effector cells (these are factories that spit out the antibodies, which become free into your plasma that can circulate in your body to bind to the VirusA) These free antibodies essentially mark the VirusA (a process called opsonization) which allows phagocytes to eat them up.
tl;dr: Humoral Response is when B cells get activated and produce effector cells, which produce free antibodies to circulate or produce memory cells which stick around in the body a long time.
Cell-Mediated Immunity (T-cells=mature in the Thymus)
2 types of T-cells (Th=Helper T-cell or Tc=cytotoxic T-cell)
1) After a phagocyte eats up a antigen that is bad for our body, it presents it on a MHC II receptor, which activates our Th through the Tcell receptor. Then again this replicates into effector Th or memory Th (same fxs as B-cells).
2) the effector Th release cytokines, which activate other immune cells, like the B-cell. (I know I told you above that the VirusA should be enough to activate the Bcell, but normally the Th can come and activate Bcells too) These cytokines also activate Tc
3) Nucleated cells(all have the MHC I receptor) may be already be infected by VirusA. they present this message on their MHC I receptor, which the Tc will recognize. They bind to this and essentially kill the infected cell. The Tc again can produce effector cells and memory cells, which are the same fxs as the Th.
Let me know if this helps!
