Читать книгу Immunology - Richard Coico - Страница 109

Animals normally do not respond immunologically to self. Thus, for example, if a rabbit is injected with its own serum albumin, it will not mount an immune response; it recognizes the albumin as self. By contrast, if rabbit serum albumin is injected into a guinea pig, the guinea pig recognizes the rabbit serum albumin as foreign and mounts an immune response against it. To prove that the rabbit, which did not respond to its own albumin, is immunologically competent, it can be injected with guinea pig albumin. The competent rabbit will mount an immune response to guinea pig serum albumin because it recognizes the substance as foreign.

Thus, the first requirement for a compound to be immunogenic is foreignness. The more foreign the substance, the more immunogenic it is. In general, compounds that are part of self are not immunogenic to that individual. However, there are exceptional cases in which an individual mounts an immune response against his or her own tissues. This condition is termed autoimmunity (see Chapter 12).